Author 




Title 



Imprint. 



10 — 47372-2 aPO 



iiiiii 



what shall we do with our 
Up dependencies? 



THE ANNUAL ADDRESS BEFORE THE BAR ASSOCIATION 
OF SOUTH CAROLINA 

Delivered in Columbia January i6, 1903 



MOORFIELD STOREY \ 







BOSTON 

Geo. H. Ellis Co., Printers, 272 Congress Street 

1903 









•^-^--^^^i^. 



\ 



Mr. Prcsidiut a)ui (imtlcvioi of the South Carolimj Inir : 

It was with peculiar pleasure that I received the invitation 
to address you this evening, not only because I felt it to be 
a high personal compliment, but because it afforded fresh evi- 
dence, if such were needed, of how entirely the differences 
that disturbed us a generation ago have ceased to divide us. 
When the secretary, the biographer, the disciple of Charles 
Sumner is called from Massachusetts to address the bar of 
South Carolina, it cannot be doubted that the cordial relations 
which formerly existed between our States are conijiletely and, 
I believe, forever restored. If I can, I would carry you back 
to-night to those early days when our fathers stood shoulder to 
shoulder in "the times that tried men's souls," and join with 
you in renewing their pledge to support those great truths 
which South Carolina and Massachusetts alike then held to 
be self-evident. 

The Present Position of our Dependencies. 

Our country to-day exercises absolute power over more 
than ten millions of human beings, — Filipinos, Porto 
Ricans, and Hawaiians, — twice as many as the whole popula- 
tion of the United States a century ago. Our dominion has 
been established without consulting them and against such 
resistance as they could make. They are not American 
citizens, nor are they likely to become such. They are gov- 
erned by the President and Congress, but they have no voice 
in the choice of either. They have no recognized rights 
under our Constitution; and, if the President by executive 
order or Congress by statute has granted to them any of the 
rights secured by the Constitution to all American citizens, 



they are merely privileges, which may be recalled at pleasure 
by a new order or a new statute. If the right of trial by jury 
and the right to bear arms, both of which are denied the Fili- 
pinos, are not their constitutional rights, they have no consti- 
tutional rights. They have no representation in the Congress 
which taxes them and controls their destiny. In a word, no 
part of the government under which they live derives its 
powers from their consent. They are merely subjects of the 
United States, as absolutely without political rights as if 
they were subjects of Spain. 

The question which now confronts the American people, 
never to be settled ' ' till it is settled right, ' ' is whether these 
conditions shall continue. What shall be our permanent 
policy toward these dependent peoples .? No more impor- 
tant question ever engaged our attention ; and we should con- 
sider it carefully and dispassionately, as Americans, and not 
as Republicans or Democrats, for we must all suffer alike 
the consequences of any mistake. It becomes us to study 
all the ethical and political conditions of our problem, 
to gather all the light that we can from the experience of 
others, and not fancy that we have a native genius for gov- 
erning our fellow-men which has been denied to other nations. 
We may be sure that the essential qualities and tendencies 
of human nature are the same, whatever the race to which a 
man belongs and whatever the color of his skin ; and in these 
qualities lie causes which under like conditions produce like 
effects, whether the scene be set in Asia, Africa, or Europe, 
and whether the time be now or two thousand years ago. 

Above all, we must dare to look the truth in the face. 
We gain nothing by deceiving ourselves. We cannot change 
the facts by refusing to see or hear them, nor will any mis- 
representation of ours bend the laws which govern mankind 
and attach to our actions their inevitable consequences. If 
we cannot justify what we have done and what we propose, 
let us at least be brave enough to admit it. 



il 



Till-. C)l'l'(>SIN(i TllKoKIKS OF riOXKKNMENT. 

At the outset of the discussion we are met by two opposing 
theories. One is that we are a superior people, enjoying the 
highest civilization known to man ; that the inhabitants of 
our dependencies are our inferiors and unfitted to govern 
themselves ; that, therefore, they have no right to indepen- 
dence, but it is our duty to take absolute control of them, to 
teach them our language, our religion, our science, and grad- 
ually to bring them up as nearly to our level as their capacity 
will admit, giving them from time to time such rights as we 
think them fitted to use wisely ; that any resistance by them 
is an unjustifiable insurrection to be sternly repressed ; that 
other civilized nations have thus dealt successfully with in- 
ferior races, and that we can succeed as well ; and, indeed, 
that we have already succeeded beyond all reasonable antici- 
pations. This is the position of the President, who in his 
annual message says, " Of Porto Rico it is only necessary 
to say that the prosperity of the island and the wisdom 
with which it has been governed have been such as to make 
it serve as an example of all that is best in insular adminis- 
tration " ; and of the Philippines: " No policy ever entered 
into by the American people has vindicated itself in a more 
signal manner than the policy of holding the Philippines. 
The triumph of our arms — above all, the triumph of our 
laws and principles — has come sooner than we had any 
right to expect." How far this is an accurate statement 
may be considered later. It is sufficient now to say that it is 
a conclusion reached after a very brief experience. 

The other theory, until lately maintained by us all, may 
be stated in the words of Henry Clay, when he was urging 
the recognition of the South American Republics in 1822: 

" But it is sometimes said that they are too ignorant to admit 
of the existence of free government. ... I deny the alleged 
fact of their ignorance. I deny the inference from the fact, 
if it were a fact, that they want capacity for free government. 
... I contend that it is to arraign the dispositions of the 



Almighty to suppose that he has created beings incapable of 
governing themselves, and to be trampled on by kings. Self- 
government is the natural government of man, and for proof 
I refer to the aborigines of our own land. ' ' 

Lincoln stated the same view thus : — 
" No man is good enough to govern another without that 
other's consent. I say this is the leading principle, the sheet- 
anchor of American republicanism. ' ' 

Against the assertion of President Roosevelt touching the 
results of our short experience, let me set the conclusions of 
two eminent Englishmen, drawn from a survey of human 
history. 

Said John Stuart Mill, as clear a thinker as England has 
produced : — 

" The government of a people by itself has a meaning and 
a reality, but such a thing as a government of one people by 
another does not and cannot exist. One people may keep an- 
other as a warren or preserve for its own use, a place to make 
money in, a human cattle farm, to be worked for the profits 
of its own inhabitants ; but, if the good of the governed is the 
proper business of a government, it is utterly impossible that 
a people should directly attend to it. " * 

The historian Froude said : — 

" If there be one lesson which history clearly teaches, it is 
this, that free nations cannot govern subject provinces. If 
they are unable or unwilling to admit their dependencies to 
share their own constitution, the constitution itself will fall 
in pieces through mere incompetence for its duties. ' ' 

Or, as Lincoln more briefly taught, — 

' ' Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for 
themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it." 

An American may well pause at the threshold of the argu- 
ment, and ask himself what has happened to his country, that 
the truths which our fathers held to be self-evident a century 
and a quarter ago are now denied by their sons ; but no right- 
eous cause fears discussion. Of these diametrically opposite 
views, which is right .'' 

*" Representative Government,'" p. 326. 



/J 



o^ 



The I^'ouNDAiioN of Each Tiikokv. 

Let us ask ourselves, in llic fnsl place, What priiuiijles un- 
derlie these opposing theories ? Disguise it as we will, the 
claim of one people that it is superior to and therefore en- 
titled to rule another rests upon no better moral foundation 
than the heathen maxim, " Might makes right. ' ' The ancient 
traveller Mandeville stated a universal truth when he said, 
" For fro what partie of the erthe that men duellen, other 
aboven or beneathen, it semethe alweys to hem that duellen 
that thei gon more righte than any other folke. " History 
contains no instance of a people admitting its inferiority 
and yielding on that account to a foreign ruler. Rome 
conquered Greece, Alaric overran Italy and captured Rome, 
Constantinople fell before the Turks. The Christian powers 
of Europe could not wrest the Holy Land from the infidel. 
Each conqueror felt himself superior to his vanquished foe ; 
but can it be said that the superior civilization triumphed ? 
Switzerland is perhaps the most highly civilized nation in 
Europe, but its claim to govern any other country on that 
account would be preposterous. As well look to see the 
triumphant prize-fighter obey the gentle admonitions of the 
next clergyman as expect a people to acknowledge itself 
inferior, and on that account surrender its liberty. The 
nation that conquers may govern another ; but it prevails by 
its might, not by its right. 

On the other hand, the theory that every people has an 
equal right to govern itself rests upon justice, the only secure 
foundation for any human institution. A nation which adopts 
this principle concedes to every other the same rights that 
it claims for itself. It may advise and help, but not force 
its advice and help upon an unwilling neighbor by fire 
and sword. The sun, not the wind, made the traveller take 
off his cloak. If we believe that Christianity is the highest 
civilization, can we doubt which rule is most in accord with 
its spirit 1 



What are Inferior Races ? 

If we concede that a civilized nation has the right to 
govern any people who are unfit to govern themselves, who 
shall decide that such unfitness exists ? Can the decision 
safely be left to the stronger nation ? Shall it be made by 
men who know nothing of the weaker people, who have never 
visited their country, who do not understand their language, 
their traditions, their character, or their needs ? Shall it 
be made without hearing their representatives and learning 
all that they can tell about their countrymen ? Can we 
be sure that the judgment of the strong is not affected by 
appeals to national vanity, by apostrophes to the flag, by 
hopes of commercial advantage, by dreams of world power, 
by the exigencies of party politics, by personal ambitions ? 
If it is made when passions and prejudices are excited 
by war, is it not likely to be influenced by these ? If the 
strong nation or its rulers consider their own interests, is 
their judgment to be trusted, — and is it possible that they 
should not do so ? Nations who consent to arbitrate and 
private litigants seek an impartial tribunal. Is such a tribu- 
nal unnecessary when the very existence of a nation is at 
stake ? 

By what standards is inferiority to be measured ? It is 
said that an Englishman thinks any one his inferior who 
does not speak the English language, wear English clothes, 
eat English food, and belong to the English Church. If a 
difference in language, raiment, food, and religion constitutes 
inferiority, the question presents no difficulty. We may 
learn a profound truth from the history of the word 
Iiostis, which, originally meaning ' ' stranger, ' ' came soon 
to mean ' ' enemy. ' ' Men whom we do not know and whom 
we cannot understand, we distrust and dislike. They are 
different, therefore inferior. Rome spoke of ' ' Graecia men- 
dax." France denounces ^^ Perfide Albion.''' The Anglo- 
Saxon insists that the Latin races are habitually false. 
' ' The heathen Chinee ' ' despises ' ' the foreign dog ' ' who 



in brute strenj^th tramples upon all that he h(jkis most sacred. 
Nay, gentlemen, even in the same country each section, each 
province, each state, is apt to think itself superior to every 
other. Odious comparisons have not been unknown even 
in our own country, and in the newspapers and speeches c)f 
forty years ago we might find language used by Americans 
about Americans which would well describe a most inferior 
race. This is human nature. 

Let me take a historical instance. When James II. brought 
Irish troops to England, the feeling of the English is thus 
described by Macaulay : — 

" No man of English blood then regarded the aboriginal 
Irish as his countrymen. They did not belong to our branch 
of the great human family. They were distinguished from 
us by more than one moral and intellectual peculiarity. 
They had an aspect of their own, a mother tongue of their 
own. When they talked English, their pronunciation was 
ludicrous, their phraseology was grotesque. . . . They were 
therefore foreigners ; and of all foreigners they were the 
most hated and despised : the most hated, for they had during 
five centuries always been our enemies ; the most despised, 
for they were our vanquished, enslaved, and despoiled 
enemies. . . . The Irish were almost as rude as the savages 
of Labrador. [The Englishman] was a freeman ; the Irish 
were the hereditary serfs of his race. He worshipped God 
after a pure and rational fashion; the Irish were sunk in 
idolatry and superstition ; . . . and he very complacently in- 
ferred that he was naturally a being of a higher order than 
the Irishman, . . . who were generally despised in our island 
as both a stupid and cowardly people. ' ' * 

Could the inferiority of the Filipinos be painted in stronger 
language to-day .? " Stupid and cowardly ! ' ' Strike from the 
annals of the English Parliament the speeches of Irish 
orators, from the records of the English army the deeds of 
Irish generals and soldiers, from English literature the works 
of Irishmen, and some of the brightest pages in English 
history would be blotted out. The Irish have given to 

* History of England, ii. p. 332. 



France a president and many an able general, to Spain a 
prime minister, to Austria, Russia, and other European 
countries soldiers, prelates, and diplomats of the highest 
rank. In every corner of the world. Irishmen have won 
laurels and proved their valor and their ability. " Stupid 
and cowardly! " How completely has one " inferior race " 
demonstrated the falsity of its oppressor's verdict ! 

But it will be said that the white man is confessedly 
superior to the brown, the European to the Asiatic. Doubt- 
less he is in some respects. Doubtless he is not in 
others. The qualities of men, mental, physical, and moral, 
are various. One man is a poet, another an inventor, a third 
a general. Which is superior ? So is it with races. In the 
qualities which make for material prosperity, energy, activity, 
keen practical intelligence, the European is superior. In 
those which contribute to spiritual elevation, the Asiatic 
is at least his equal. 

A recent English writer says of the Chinese, " Courage 
they have, and of a high quality ; but for centuries they have 
regarded force as a less desirable method of persuasion than 
an appeal to reason, and in consequence the soldier has been 
despised in proportion as the scholar has been honored." 
Such a nation may not resist a modern army ; but is its civili- 
zation inferior to that which showers rewards upon the suc- 
cessful general and despises the scholar as a weakling .? * 

Mr. Meredith Townsend, who is said to know India better 
than any other Englishman, thus deals with the claim that 
Asiatics are inferior : — 

" These Asiatics who are accounted so despicable have 
devised and kept up for ages, without exhausting the soil or 
importing food, a system of agriculture which sustains in 
health and even comfort a population often thicker than that 
of any European State. They understand agricultural 
hydraulics perfectly, and have executed hydraulic works, 
canals, and tanks which are the admiration of European 
engineers. Fronj the days of Babylon to the days of Bombay 
they have covered their continent with great cities, some of 

♦Thomson, " China and the Powers," p. 123. 



which contain marvels of architecture, while all have been 
warehouses for immense trade, centres of great banking sys- 
tems, or chosen seats of men who have conquered or legis- 
lated for or administered great empires. 

"Asiatics built the Alhambra and the Taj, the temples 
above the Ghauts of Benares, and the fantastic towers of 
Nankin. Asiatics, unassisted by Europeans, have carried 
all the arts, save sculpture and painting, to a high degree of 
perfection, so that learned men have written volumes to ex- 
plain their architecture; and while no pottery can excel 
Chinese porcelain, no sword-smith a Damascus blade, no gold- 
smith will promise to improve on a Trichinopoly chain. 

' ' They have devoted such mental force to the consideration 
of the whence and whither and the relation of the visible to 
the invisible that all the creeds accepted by civilized and 
semi-civilized mankind are of Asiatic origin. All humanity, 
except the negroes and the savage races of America and 
Polynesia, regulate their conduct and look for a future state 
as some Asiatic has taught them. 

' ' Europe, having accepted with hearty confidence the views 
of Peter and Paul, both Asiatics, about the meaning of what 
their divine Master said, regards all other systems of religious 
thought with contemptuous distaste, and sums them up in its 
heart as 'heathen rubbish.' Yet Confucius must have 
been a wise man, or his writings could not have moulded the 
Chinese mind ; while Mohammedanism has a grip such as no 
other creed, not even Christianity, possesses, except on a few 
individuals. Brahminism and Buddhism alike rest upon deep 
and far-reaching philosophies. ' ' * 

Does it not seem the height of presumption for us, in our 
iffnorance, to claim that brown men are necessarily our in- 
feriors, or that Asiatics, whose ideas govern the moral world, 
cannot govern themselves .? 

Said James Russell Lowell, — 

"When the moral vision of a man becomes perverted 
enough to persuade him that he is superior to his fellow, he 
is in reality looking up at him from an immeasurable distance 
beneath. 

• " Asia and Europe," pp. 7, 8, 9, 13. 



lO 



The Conditions of Good Government. 

Let us proceed to a more important inquiry. If our new 
subjects cannot give themselves what we think a good gov- 
ernment, are we Hkely to give them a better ? Or is Presi- 
dent Schurman right in saying, "Any decent government of 
the FiHpinos by the Filipinos is better than the best possible 
government of Filipinos by Americans ' ' ? Let us consider 
this question, bearing steadily in mind certain fundamental 
principles. 

Fi7sL Every government should exist solely for the 
benefit of the governed ; and, to just the extent that the 
governors consider their own interests first, ". the govern- 
ment is bad. Power is held in trust for the good of the 
community. When he who wields it uses it to advance or 
enrich himself at the expense of the community, he violates 
his trust. 

Second. The object of every government should be to 
educate, develop, and elevate the people, increasing the hap- 
piness of the individual, not to develop mines, increase com- 
merce, and add to the world's wealth without regard to the 
people. In a word, every good ruler should try to make 
men, in the broadest sense of the term, not to make 
money. 

Third. In order to develop a people, their rulers must 
understand them and believe in them, and must know their 
tendencies, their limitations, their capabilities, and their 
prejudices. No man or woman succeeds as a teacher who 
does not understand children, and no man can lead other 
men up unless he believes in them and they believe in him. 
If a ruler feels contempt for his subjects, there is mutual 
repulsion ; and his power to lead or teach them is gone. 
Nothing galls a human being so much as an assumption of 
superiority by another. 

In the words of Mr. Townsend, — 
All Asiatics attribute to almost all Englishmen atrocious 
rnanners, chiefly because Englishmen are so impatient of 



II 



loss of time; and we are all more irritated by habitual ill- 
manners, and especially ill-manners indicating contempt, than 
by any ordinary oppression." 

Filially, human experience has amply proved that no man 
can safely be trusted with absolute power. The struggle of 
men for freedom has ever been an attempt to create " a 
government of laws, and not of men. 

In all civilized governments there are two restraints on 
power, — a constitution and public opinion. A constitution, 
whether embodied in a written charter or in established prec- 
edents, contains the matured conclusions of a people on po- 
litical questions which are settled. Public opinion is the 
judgment of the people on new questions as they arise ; and, in 
proportion as this opinion is enlightened and active, govern- 
ment is good. It is the expression of public spirit ; and, where 
it is apathetic or mistaken, grave abuses creep into the State. 
The fear of public opinion restrains every man in public life, 
and too often makes him a coward ; but, if it is to be a force 
working for good, the people must know the truth. They 
must understand each case aright, or their judgment will be 
wrong; and the gravest responsibility rests on every public 
man who seeks to mislead them by falsehood or evasion. 

As abstract propositions, men will generally admit that 
government should be administered in the interest of the 
governed, that the primary object should be the elevation of 
the people, that mutual sympathy and understanding should 
exist between the people and their rulers, and that the power 
of the government should be restrained by constitutional 
limitations and enlightened public opinion. These are essen- 
tial conditions of good government everywhere. What is 
the chance of their being observed in the government of our 
dependencies ? The answer to this question will determine 
whether Mill and Froude and Lincoln are right or wrong in 
asserting that no nation, least of all a republic, can success- 
fully govern a subject race. 



12 



Our Government will not be for the Benefit of 
THE Governed. 

To simplify the argviment, let us consider the case of the 
Philippine Islands. Will our government there exist for the 
benefit of the governed ? 

We took them wholly for the benefit of their people. At 
least, this was the statement of President McKinley, who 
made the decision, and who, in announcing it to the Peace 
Commissioners at Paris, told them that he had ' ' been in- 
fluenced by the single consideration of duty and humanity, 
and who subsequently wrote to them : — 

" The trade and commercial side, as well as indemnity for 
the cost of the war, are questions we might yield. They 
might be waived or compromised, but the questions of duty 
and humanity appeal to the President so strongly that he can 
find no appropriate answer but the one he has marked out." 

Whatever President McKinley may have persuaded him- 
self to think, is there any other American who seriously 
believes that this people hold the Philippine Islands purely 
from motives of philanthropy, that the thousands of lives and 
millions of money which we have spent there have been 
spent in a spirit of simple charity, that the last four years 
have been an attempt to -do unto others what we would that 
they should do to us.? Let us be frank with ourselves, — 
as frank as Senator Lodge, — than whom no man is closer to 
the administration, and who in his speech as president of the 
Republican convention in Philadelphia said : — 

' ' We make no hypocritical pretence of being interested in 
the Philippines solely on account of others. While we re- 
gard the welfare of these people as a sacred trust, we regard 
the welfare of the American people first. We see our duty 
to ourselves as well as to others. We believe in trade ex- 
pansion. ' ' 

There are no illusions about this statement. Our govern- 
ment in the Philippines exists "Jirsi" for the interest of the 
governors, not solely or even principally for the benefit of 



13 

the governed. This in the exact truth, nm\ our whole 
course shows it. It is not necessary to quote from the 
speeches of Senator Bcverid^^' and hundreds like him, wlio in 
the nowspai)cr or on the stump describe the material resources 
of the islands, and dilate upon the wealtli which we shall 
derive from them. 

We need not dwell upon the fact that after the Spanish 
War was over and. there was not in the islands a Spaniard 
who was not a prisoner, we continued to send thousands of 
troops to the Philippines. Why ? Not to help the Pllipinos 
up, but to crush the anticipated resistance of a people whose 
right to independence we were determined to deny. 

The real purpose of the men who are behind this policy of 
conquest is disclosed by our conduct. The great forests, 
the rich mines, the undeveloped wealth of these islands, be- 
long to the people who have dwelt there for centuries. Is 
it our purpose to help them to use these resources for their 
own benefit .? Have we industrial missionaries there, telling 
the Filipinos how Americans mine, farm, cut lumber, or 
manufacture goods ? Have we financial missionaries eager 
to teach them how profitable public franchises may be made, 
how capital can be combined through corporations, and the 
small savings of many made adequate to large undertakings .? 
Have we thought for a moment of giving them the benefit of 
their home market by an appropriate tariff or dreamt that 
" The Philippines for Filipinos " is every whit as reasonable 
as ' ' America for Americans ' ' } 

On the contrary, the advocates of our new policy expect 
to find in these islands chances for Americans, not Filipinos, 
to make fortunes. Thus Governor Taft, in his testimony 
before the Senate Committee last spring, said that he thought 
the power to grant franchises was " indispensable," and that 
through them " the agriculture of the islands could be enor- 
mously developed." He proceeded: "A franchise to an 
agricultural company, — I know of a number, — accompanied 
by the right to purchase something of the public domain, 
would bring a great deal of capital to ' the islands, if we can 



14 

judge from the statements made to us by those who are 
interested, for the raising of sugar, for the raising of rice, 
cocoanuts. I do not know that there is any proposition for 
the raising of hemp. There is for the raising of cotton and 
for the raising of tobacco. You would have to give them 
a part of the public domain, — sell it to them. Of course, a 
large part of the public domain ought to be sold, ' ' and he 
thought in ' ' large tracts. ' ' 

He stated also that mining and timber could be developed 
by franchises, and that a mining law would be necessary, 
but that franchise and law would be nothing unless there 
was granted to the corporation " the control of title to cer- 
tain mineral lands. 

He testified that American prospectors had been in the 
islands, and were increasing ; and ' ' they go everywhere. 
. . . They are generally from the volunteers who have 
been through the country, and who, being confident of suc- 
cess in developing the mining resources, are waiting very 
patiently — I use the expression with deference — for a law 
that will enable them to get the benefit of their discoveries 
and their risks in going through these mountains and finding 
claims. 

The extent of the opportunity is shown by Governor Taft's 
testimony, that there are in the islands about sixty to sixty- 
five million acres of agricultural land, and only five million 
acres under individual ownership ; and the nature of our 
claim is shown by Senator Lodge's remark when this testi- 
mony was given : — 

" The great mass of lands of all kinds are public lands, 
which were crown lands under Spain, and are now lands of 
the United States." 

Governor Taft concluded: " "We want to make it profitable 
for men to go there, so that they shall invest capital and 
develop the country. On the other hand, we do not want to 
give to corporations or any set of men such control over the 
available land of the islands that they shall own not only the 
land, but shall own the people on it ; and that is the danger 
in the Philippine Islands. ' ' 



15 

The annual report of the Thilippine Commission jnst pub- 
lished goes farther, and would re[)eal the restrictions imposed 
by Congress only last summer. They say : " Anc^ther matter 
which we desire to call to your attention, and through you, if 
it meets with your approval, to that of Congress, is the bur- 
densome restrictions upon the investment of capital in lands 
and in mines in these islands. As the government owns 
65,000,000 of acres out of 70,000,000 in the archipelago, 
there is substantially no danger that the ownership of land 
here can be centred in a few individuals or corporations, if the 
amount owned by any one individual owner or corporation is 
limited by law to 20,000 or 25,000 acres. 

"The requirement that no corporation shall own more than 
2500 acres stops absolutely the investment of new capital in 
the sugar industry and in the tobacco industry It takes 
away any hope of bringing prosperity to these islands by the 
extending of the acreage in the cultivation of these two im- 
portant products of the archipelago. It very much interferes 
with the investmenti of capital in railroad enterprises, because 
they are naturally connected with the possibilities of trans- 
portation of sugar and tobacco from the interior to seaports." 

There is no doubt what all this means. No one sug- 
gests that these lands are held by the United States in trust 
for the Filipinos, and to be developed for them and by them. 
They are the property of the United States, to be used so 
that Americans can make money. How will the Filipinos 
benefit by this development ? 

Is it suggested that this influx of American capital will 
create a demand for their labor } The answer is found in the 
recommendations of Professor Jenks to the War Department, 
just published. The claim is loudly made among the exploit- 
ers that Filipino labor is worthless ; and, dealing with this 
question, Mr. Jenks says : — 

" It is, then, possibly, fair to say that of the ordinary Fili- 
pino laborers a certain percentage may be secured who will 
work faithfully and well, provided good wages are paid, and 
provided they are handled by an employer with firmness and 
skill. 



i6 

" There are, however, not enough Filipinos who can be 
secured in the city or from the provinces to do anything like 
the amount of work required to develop the resources of the 
island as rapidly as is desirable. Doubtless some of the 
American and European employers of labor in Manila who 
are raising the greatest outcry regarding the scarcity and 
worthlessness of Filipino labor, and who are demanding that 
the Chinese be admitted, are wishing mainly to cut down 
wages and secure cheap labor. To assume that this desire, 
however, is the only one which leads to the demand for 
Chinese labor, is to misjudge the facts." 

His recommendation is that the Philippine Commission 
be empowered to permit the importation by employers of 
Chinese laborers under contract for three years, the em- 
ployers to provide lodging and food, and to return the laborer 
to China at the end of the time. Under no circumstances 
are they to leave their district of residence or to settle in 
the country. The Commission in its report, while saying 
that, as conditions improve, ' ' the supply and efficiency of the 
Filipino laborers will become much more satisfactory, ' ' yet 
asks for power to admit a limited number of Chinese, under 
such restrictions as the Commission may impose. This is 
clearly an entering wedge, which will be driven farther as 
capital flows in and grows stronger. The demand comes 
from Americans and foreigners, not from Filipinos. 

Can any one fail to see the inevitable effect of such 
a development .'' We who claim that only a sense of duty 
to these people kept us in the Philippine Islands propose 
now to introduce Chinamen, who are virtually slaves, in 
competition with native citizens, who require " good wages. " 
General MacArthur appreciated the danger of such a policy, 
and from his last report I quote : — 

" Indications are apparent of organized and systematized 
efforts to break down all barriers with a view to unrestricted 
Chinese immigration for the purpose of quick and effective 
exploitation of the islands, — a policy which would not only be 
ruinous to the Filipino people, but would in the end surely 



17 

defeat the cxixmsion of American trade. ... In this con- 
nection it may not be improper to state that one of the 
greatest ililliculties attending military efforts to tranquiUize 
the people of the archipelago arises from their dread of sud- 
den and e.xcessive exploitation, which, they fear, would de- 
fraud them of their natural patrimony, and at the same time 
relegate them to a status of social and political inferiority. 
... If a spirit of Philippine speculation should seize the pub- 
lic mind in the United States, and be emphasized by means 
of grants, concessions, and special franchises for the purpose 
of quick exploitation, the political situation and permanent 
interests of all concerned might be seriously jeopardized." 

Governor Taft admitted that the Filipinos who support the 
United States are all very much opposed to Chinese immigra- 
tion, and that the fear of this and the belief that the United 
States want the islands for exploitation was one great obsta- 
cle to pacification. Are not the Filipinos right ; and are they 
reassured by the statement of Governor Taft, that franchises 
should be granted to Americans, followed by the act of Con- 
gress which gave the Commission power to grant them .-' 

Let a Filipino speak for his countrymen. When asked if 
they would object to the sale of lands and franchises, he 
answered Senator Carmack : — 

" Most assuredly they would. Until the Filipinos have at 
least internal control of their own affairs, it would be a most 
improper thing to alienate the public lands or to dispose of 
franchises to foreign capitalists. Under present conditions, 
when the Filipinos are impoverished by six years of war, 
when their crops and towns have been destroyed, and when 
their working animals have almost all died of rinderpest, it 
would be most unfair to the Filipinos to compel them to com- 
pete with foreign capitalists in the purchase of public lands 
and franchises. The foreign capitalist could in ever)- case 
outbid the native ; and the result would be another and a 
worse Ireland, with everything of value in the hands of 
absentees, whose only interest in the country would be what 
profits could be squeezed out of it." 



Is this the language of a man so savage or uncivilized as 
to lack the capacity for self-government ? How many Amer- 
ican voters could make a better statement ? 

We exclude the Chinese from our own land lest they injure 
our citizens. It is proposed that we subject our helpless de- 
pendants to a competition which we, a race of superior men, 
are afraid to encounter. American capital is to control lands, 
mines, forests, and public franchises. Chinese labor is to do 
the work ; and the resources which belong to the Filipinos, — 
"their patrimony," to quote General Mac Arthur, — which we 
should hold in trust for them, will be used to enrich us, 
while, strangers in their own land, they are pushed to the wall. 
Between the upper and nether millstones of foreign capital 
and foreign labor they will be crushed. What will be their 
future when the resources of sixty-five million acres are con- 
trolled by foreigners ? How long can they retain the little 
land which they now own against such competition ? We 
know how hard it is for us here in America to resist the 
encroachments of capital, which by bribing our legislative 
bodies controls our public services and obtains special privi- 
leges, and which buys seats in the Senate, foreign missions, 
nominations, and elections. We see in Pennsylvania how it 
breaks the laws intended to restrain it, and how it deals 
with its laborers. If we have bonds or shares in great cor- 
porations, we have learned that they do not respect their 
contracts, and that a minority interest has no rights which a 
majority is bound to respect. If these things are done here 
against us who vote and can make or unmake our rulers, 
what will be done in distant Luzon against a race whom we 
call inferior, and which will have no vote and no power to 
resist the oppression of foreign interests ? 

This policy is not prompted by duty. This is not "benevo- 
lent assimilation" : it is pure greed. It recalls the words of 
Sir Thomas More, quoted by Mr. Hobson : " Everywhere do 
I perceive a certain conspiracy of rich men seeking their own 
advantage under the name and pretext of the Common- 
wealth." When men tell us that we must not " haul down 



19 

the flag," can we tail to recall Cecil Rhodes's remark that his 
country's flag was " the greatest commercial asset in the 
world" ? In the avowed purjiose to govern the Philippines in 
our own interest ^'Jirst" is found one reason why our rule will 
injure, and not benefit them. The words I have quoted from 
Mill exactly fit. 

Olr Government will not Elevate the People. 

It is equally apparent that the second condition of good 
government will be lacking. The purpose of our government 
will not be to develop the Filipino people, using their re- 
sources in trust for that purpose, but to develop mines and 
forests ; not to make men, but to make dollars. That is to 
be the primary object of our policy. We may talk about 
educating them, civilizing them, elevating them ; but these 
are general phrases by which we deceive ourselves and others. 
"Where our treasure is, there will our heart be also." What 
we really want is the money. We wish in a languid way 
to improve the Filipinos ; but those who desire this, amid 
their cares in this country, will not gi\'e more than an occa- 
sional thought to these remote people, while those who want 
wealth will give all their time and energy to the pursuit, and 
the latter will control our pohcy. 

But, granting that we are in earnest, our whole theory of 
educating and civilizing the Filipinos is mistaken. We find a 
people, in the first place, largely Christian. Governor Taft, 
before the Senate Committee, said : " The Christian persons 
amount to something over 5,000,000, perhaps 6,000,000. 
The estimate has been made — a very poor estimate — that 
there are from one million and a half to two million of the 
non-Christian tribes, and the rest, to make, up eight or nine 
millions, have been estimated as Moros. It is the Christians, 
certainly, who have carried on the insurrection." 

■Senator Lodge, in a report from his committee, made the 
proportion of Christians larger, — some si.x and a quarter mill- 
ions out of seven millions. 



20 

Questioned as to the education of the Fihpinos, Governor 
Taft told the committee that he did not know what propor- 
tion of the people could read and write, but the Spaniards 
thought that between five and seven per cent of the entire 
population could speak Spanish. "The great majority do not 
either read or write any language at all." 

On the other hand, an article sent to the Senate by Sec 
retary Root, and said to have been compiled in the Division of- 
Insular Affairs from standard works and the records of the 
Department, supplemented by the personal experience of re- 
turning ofificers, " states that ' most of them [the Tagals], both 
men and women, can read and write.' " 

Governor Taft further said, " Among the educated classes 
there is, undoubtedly, a pride in their own people, and a desire 
that their own people shall progress. . . . And that pride in 
town and pride in province and pride in their people, as a 
people, and their love of education and their desire to be edu- 
cated, constitute the hope of success of what we are doing 
there." He also said "that for three hundred years they 
have been educated in the Christian religion." 

President Schurman, as the chairman of the first Philippine 
commission, had excellent opportunities to study this people ; 
and he described them in May last as " the 6,500,000 civilized 
and Christianized Filipinos of Luzon and the Visayas," and 
denounced the policy which would retain them, on the 
ground of advantage to the United States, as " a brutal out- 
rage on 6,500,000 brother men and fellow Christians." In 
the same address he said that " nothing could more unhappily 
describe . . . these people than the word ' tribe,' " and added, 
" Let us drop so misleading a term, and speak of them as 
communities, and let us call the aggregate of these com- 
munities the Phihppine nation." 

Senator Hoar is a student of history, and as competent as 
any statesman, living or dead, to judge of education and civil- 
ization. He has given his best consideration to the Philip- 
pine question, and he said that " the Filipino leaders and the 



21 

Filipino people have shown themselves under difficult and 
trying conditions as fit for freedom and self-government as 
any people south of us on the American Continent from the 
Rio Grande to Cape II<^rn. I believe, if we had dealt with 
them as it seems to mc we ought to have dealt with them, 
they would have established their nation in constitutional 
liberty much more rapidly than has been done by any Span- 
ish-speaking people. . . . They had an excellent constitution. 
They had a congress ; they had courts ; they had a president ; 
they had a cabinet. . . . They had newspapers, schools, litera- 
ture, statesmen. . . . The State papers which these people 
have issued show a high degree of intelligence." 

Such are the people whom we are undertaking to remake. 
We find them all speaking a language of their own, and 
we begin our attempt to improve them by trying to cure 
them of their mother tongue and make them learn English. 
Language is not education. It is a tool by which men get 
education. Knowing nothing about their tool, we insist that 
they shall abandon it, and adopt ours as the first step toward 
learning ; and, when we remember how few of the teachers 
speak any language but English, we can guess how slow the 
progress is. Instead of reaching them through their own 
schools and their own teachers, we would throw away their 
whole system, and extemporize one of our own at their 
expense. President Schurman has characterized the attempt 
as "a crime against nature," but it is typical of our whole 
attitude. Even among our own young men sprung from 
the same race we have learned to recognize radical differ- 
ences. We no longer require them all to pursue the same 
studies, but we let them elect widely divergent courses. Be- 
tween races the differences are as ineffaceable as between 
the oak and the palm. Civilization for each race means the 
development of its powers along the lines fixed by its nature. 
The Chinese mandarin is an absolutely different creature 
from the English nobleman, but both may be equally civil- 
ized. We in our ignorance are trying to make Filipinos into 
Americans instead of tr}-ing to make them better Filipinos. 



22 

The experiment has been tried by other nations, and never 
with success. In India the Mahommedans make many con- 
verts where the Christian missionaries make few. Let Mr. 
Townsend tell the reason : — 

" The missionary never becomes an Indian or anything 
which an Indian could mistake for himself. . . . He under- 
stands no civilization not European ; and by unwearied ad- 
monition, by governing, by teaching, by setting up all manner 
of useful industries, he tries to bring them up to his narrow 
ideal. . . . There is the curse of the whole system, whether of 
missionary work or of education in India. The missionary, 
like the educationist, cannot resist the desire to make his 
pupils English, to teach them English literature, English 
science, English knowledge, often . . . through the medium 
of English alone. . . . The result is that the missionary 
becomes an excellent pastor or an efhcient schoolmaster, and 
that his converts . . . become in exact proportion to his success 
a hybrid caste not quite European, not quite Indian, with the 
originality killed out of them, with self-reliance weakened, 
with all mental aspirations wrenched violently in a direction 
which is not their own. . . . Natives of India, when they are 
Christians, will be and ought to be Asiatics still, — that is, as 
unlike English rectors or English dissenting ministers as it is 
possible for men of the same creed to be ; and the effort to 
squeeze them into these moulds not only wastes power, but 
destroys the vitality of the original material. Mahommedan 
proselytism succeeds in India because it leaves its converts 
Asiatics still. Christian proselytism fails in India because it 
strives to make of its converts English middle-class men. 
That is the truth in a nutshell, whether we choose to accept 
it or not ?" * 

The advocates of the new policy tell us that we have the 
experience of other nations to guide us ; but they have not 
taken the pains to see what that experience has taught. If I 
may revert to my humble metaphor, it has taught nothing 
more clearly than that you cannot turn a palm into an oak, 
though you may easily spoil the palm in the attempt. 

* " Asia and Europe," pp. 78, 79, 81. 



23 



Americans an'i> Filipinos iiavf. no Mi TrAi. Svmi'atiiv. 

The third condition of success also is wanting. Mutual 
understanding, respect, and sympathy (.\o not exist, and never 
can exist, between us and our Asiatic subjects. 

We went into the Spanish War as a people with profes- 
sions of unselfish zeal for humanity. In the words of Presi- 
dent McKinley to the ambassadors of the various European 
powers, we hoped that the world would appreciate our " dis- 
interested and unselfish endeavors to fulfil a duty to humanity 
by ending- a situation the indefinite prolongation of which has 
become insufferable." 

The Filipinos, trusting not only in these assurances, but in 
our record as the sincere friends of the oppressed everywhere, 
hailed us as deliverers. The proclamation of their leaders, 
sent to Luzon before our squadron, showed their faith : 
" Compatriots, Divine Providence is about to place indepen- 
dence within our reach. . . . There where you see the Amer- 
ican flag fiying, assemble in numbers. They are our deliv- 
erers 1 " And on May 24, 1898, ere the echoes of Dewey's 
cannon had died away, Aguinaldo's proclamation gave addi- 
tional assurance : " P^ilipinos, the great nation, North Amer- 
ica, cradle of liberty, and friendly on that account to the lib- 
erty of our people, . . . has come to manifest a protection 
which is disinterested toward us, considering us with suffi- 
cient civilization to govern by ourselves this our unhappy 
land." Must there not always be a profound pathos in these 
words to any one who reads the story of the P'ilipino tragedy ? 

Their expectations were encouraged, after General Merritt's 
arrival, by his proclamation : " The American people do not 
come here to make war upon any party. It proclaims itself 
merely the champion, the liberator of people oppressed by 
bad government of Spaniards." 

It is needless to recall how the P^ilipinos organized their 
army, and before any American soldiers landed in Luzon ex- 
pelled the Spaniards from every part of the islands except 
Manila, capturing many and holding them as prisoners with 



24 

other Spaniards delivered to them by Admiral Dewey. The 
story of their part in the campaign against Spain, as well as 
any discussion of their relations with our commanders, is for- 
eign to my immediate purpose. I only wish to make it 
clear that at the outset we found in the Filipinos enthusiastic 
friends, and that our feeling toward them was not the result 
of any hostility on their part. 

The opinions formed by our representatives were favorable 
to them. Thus Admiral Dewey on June 27 cabled, — 

" In my opinion, these people are far superior in their 
intelligence and more capable of self-government than the 
natives of Cuba ; and I am familiar with both races." 

General Merritt, on his arrival in Paris in October, 1898, 
was reported as saying : — 

"The Filipinos impress me very favorably. I think great 
injustice has been done the native population. . . . They are 
more capable of self-government than, I think, the Cubans are. 
They are considered to be good Catholics. They have 
lawyers, doctors, and men of kindred professions, who stand 
well in the community, and bear favorable comparison with 
those of other countries. They are dignified, courteous, and 
reserved." 

John Barrett, our minister to Siam, saw the government 
organized by the Filipinos in operation, and described it as 
" a government which has practically been administering the 
affairs of that great island [Luzon] since the American pos- 
session of Manila, and which is certainly better than the for- 
mer administration. It has a properly formed cabinet and 
congress, the members of which in appearance and manner 
would compare favorably with Japanese statesmen." "The 
congressmen, whose sessions I repeatedly attended, conducted 
themselves with great decorum, and showed a knowledge of 
debate and parliamentary law that would not compare un- 
favorably with the Japanese parliament. The executive por- 
tion of the government was made up of a ministry of bright 
men, who seemed to understand their respective positions," 
while among Aguinaldo's advisers were "men of acknowl- 
edged ability as international lawyers." 



25 

These were the fiiendl)- and intelH^ciU jx-ople witli wliDiii 
our government undertook to establish relations. They were 
at home in the country where they and their fathers had lived 
for centuries. They understood their situation and their 
needs, as men understand subjects which they have spent 
their lives in studying. We were absolute strangers, rep- 
resentatives of a people of whom very few, till the victory at 
Manila, knew where the Philippine Islands were, much less 
anything of their people. Yet no sooner had we, with their 
active co-operation, defeated the common enemy than we pro- 
ceeded to determine their future without even consulting 
them. No sooner had our soldiers landed than the Anglo- 
Saxon contempt for men of a race and color different from 
our own, intensified in the American by the long-established 
relation of master and slave with the negro and of conqueror 
with the Indian, began to manifest itself. Privates and 
officers began to speak of their allies as "niggers" or "Ind- 
ians," and volumes of evidence would not make their feeling 
of contempt any clearer to you than their use of these words. 
Let me add the testimony of an intelligent soldier who was 
on the spot : — 

" The outrages committed against his [Aguinaldo's] people 
in Manila were as varied as they were frequent. I have seen 
drunken soldiers kick Filipinos, break beer bottles over their 
heads, and knock them down with their fists. I have seen 
stands raided, and pedlers ' kangarooed.' Under the credit 
system that we introduced, bills were run up under false 
names ; and the wronged native, seeking redress, would be 
sent from company to company, only to learn that no such 
person was to be found. Every bunco game known to our 
civilization was worked upon the natives." 

This statement is abundantly confirmed by the order pub- 
lished by General Anderson on January 28, 1899, from which 
I quote : — 

" By taking advantage of the ignorance and trust of numer- 
ous native tradesmen of Manila, many enlisted men of this 
command have seriously impaired the reputation of the citi- 



26 

zens of the United States for honesty. These unscrupulous 
men, instead of insuring the rights and property of a defence- 
less people under their protection, have resorted to a despicable 
species of robbery, more dangerous than looting, because less 
open." 

Let me quote a single passage from many found in offi- 
cial orders before hostilities began. These words are found 
in an order issued July 5, 1898, within a week after our troops 
landed. It calls attention to the orders regulating the con- 
duct of "troops in campaign," and proceeds : — 

"These provisions relate to pillaging, looting, and general 
misconduct in time of war. They relate to public as well as 
private property. The desecration of churches is particularly 
offensive, and will be rigorously punished. Unlawful appro- 
priation is theft, in war as well as in peace ; and the oppression 
of non-combatants is cowardly and mean. Such conduct 
changes friends to enemies." 

If such was the conduct of privates, what was the course 
of the government ? The Filipinos sent an accomplished 
envoy to Washington ; but the government, though willing 
to make a treaty with the sultan of the Sulus, would not 
receive this ambassador of their most enlightened Asiatic de- 
pendants. The Filipino government sent representatives to 
the Peace Congi-ess at Paris, but the doors of the council- 
room were closed to them. We would not even let these 
inferior people tell us what they could of their situation and 
their wishes. 

General Merritt thus described his own course : " It was 
impossible to recognize the insurgents. I made it a point 
not to do so, as I knew it would lead to complications. I 
think Admiral Dewey after my arrival pursued the same 
course. What was done before is not a matter upon which I 
can comment. I purposely did not recognize Aguinaldo nor 
his troops, nor use them in any way. Aguinaldo did not ask 
to see me until ten days after my arrival. After that I was 
too much occupied to see him." 

It is certain that our commanders ordered Aouinaldo to 



27 

withdraw his forces, to keep them within certain lines, and in 
various ways asserted " supremacy " over them ; and this atti- 
tude continued till hostilities be,Lcan. It is certain that our 
administration in Washington ignored the Filipinos as com- 
pletely as if they had not existed in determining what should 
be done with these thousands of islands and millions of 
people. From President to private the attitude of our repre- 
sentatives was consistent. It is not my j^urpose to character- 
i7,e it or to question the sincerity of the men who adopted it. 
I would only point out how absolutely lacking was all sym- 
pathy with or respect for the Filipinos on our part, even when 
they were our friends and allies and before there had been 
any conflict to create hatred and destroy all chance of mutual 
understanding. 

Their struggle for freedom has not brought us nearer to- 
gether. President Roosevelt, during the campaign of 1900, 
said that to give the Filipinos " independence now would be 
precisely like giving independence to the wildest tribe of 
Apaches in Arizona." It may be said that these words were 
hastily uttered in a political speech ; but, none the less, they 
went all over this country, and helped to form the opinions of 
many who were glad to believe ill of the people with whom 
their country was at w^ar. In his first message to Congress, 
however, is a very careful statement. 

" What has taken us thirty generations to achieve, we can- 
not expect to see another race accomplish out of hand, es- 
pecially when large portions of that race start very far behind 
the point which our ancestors had reached even thirty 
generations ago." It is a bold man who undertakes to say 
what our ancestors were doing a thousand years ago, and a 
much bolder who says that large portions of the Filipino race 
are veiy far beJmid the point they had then reached. 

The language, however, clearly indicates how far below 
the plane of civilization upon which the President places him- 
self and his countrymen are the depths in which the Filipinos 
dwell. I need not quote the Secretary of War, who attributes 
to this people *' the barbarous cruelty conmion among un- 



28 

civilized races," and describes them generally as treacherous 
foes ; but it is a curious illustration of our attitude toward 
them that Governor Taft, sent out to govern them, never 
spoke to Aguinaldo after his capture, though his house was 
very near the latter's place of confinement. 

Now let us for a moment see how the same people are de- 
scribed by Captain Hatch, of the i8th Infantry, after serv- 
ing for more than a year in the islands and being brought in 
contact with thousands of the people : — 

He says : " The Filipinos are Malays softened by contact 
with the Spaniards. . . . The Filipino is essentially honest. . . . 
The Filipinos are a deeply religious people. . . . They are a 
temperate, sober people. During a year's residence among 
them I never saw a drunken Filipino. They are a cleanly 
people." They are " hospitable, and they are generous in 
their hospitality. They are not an ignorant people. Their 
intelligence and educational progress are apt to be underesti- 
mated because of failure to understand them. Nearly every 
adult can read and write in the Tagalo or Viscayan dialect ; 
while the natives of the cities and villages, in addition, can 
read and write the Spanish language. Moreover, most adults 
know something of arithmetic, geography, and history. I was 
surprised one day, in questioning the driver of my quily, an 
ordinary poor boy of eighteen, to find that he had studied 
geometry, and had made very material progress. 

"The Filipinos are not so much different from other 
people. Their customs, habits, hopes, and aspirations are 
deep-seated. Their leaders are shrewd, bright men of much 
ability : the masses are earnest in their loyalty." 

Let me add the testimony of an American Congressman, 
Mr. Shafroth, who visited the islands : — 

"The general impression exists among many Americans 
that the Philippine people are savages. A visit to the islands 
will certainly dispel any such delusion. . . . 

" When I find behind the prescription desks of the numer- 
ous drug-stores of the islands, even when kept by Americans 
and Englishmen, Filipinos compounding medicines taken from 



29 

bottles labelled in Lalin ; when I see behind the counter of 
banks havini; large capital natives acting as book-keepers and 
as receiving and paying tellers ; when I find them as mer- 
chants and clerks in almost all lines of business, as telegraph 
operators and ticket agents, conductors and engineers upon 
railroads, and as musicians rendering upon almost all ir^tru- 
ments high-class music ; when I am told that they alone 
make the observations and intricate calculations at the Manila 
observatory, and that prior to the insurrection there were 
2,100 schools in the islands and 5,000 students in attendance 
at the Manila university ; when I find the better class living 
in good, substantial, and sometimes elegant houses, and many 
of them pursuing professional occupations, — I cannot but 
conclude that it is a vile slander to compare these people to 
the Apaches or the American Indians. . . . 

" The best evidence of the ability of the Philippine people 
to govern themselves is that they possess a large intelligent 
class, thoroughly identified in interest with the islands, and 
capable of administering good government. The civil com- 
mission has recognized this ability by recently adding three 
native members to that governing body ; by appointing three 
Filipino judges of the supreme court ; by selecting about 
half of the judges of the first instance and nearly all the gov- 
ernors of the provinces from that race ; and by appointing a 
solicitor-general and many other officers from the natives. 
Are these officials not in the governing business, and do they 
not perform their work as well as the Americans ? Is it 
possible that they are capable of governing because they were 
appointed by the representatives of a distant nation .'' Would 
they lose that ability if elected or chosen b)- properly consti- 
tuted authority of their own ? In the latter event they would 
make far better officers, because they would consult only the 
interest of their own people instead of that of a nation 7,000 
miles away." 

Between the President's conception of the people whom he 
rules and this picture painted by American eye-witnesses 
there is a great gulf. Both sides may be honest : both can- 



30 

not be right. If the eye-witnesses happen to be right, what, 
think you, is the chance of our successfully governing such a 
people as they describe upon the theory of that people's 
nature and condition which the President entertains ? Entire 
ignorance or radical misconception of his subjects will insure 
conspicuous failure on the part of the ruler, whether native 
or foreign. 

They have no Constitutional Rights, 

Let us now pass to two other conditions of good govern- 
ment which do not exist in the Philippine Islands or any of our 
insular dependencies. The first is a constitutional restraint on 
arbitrary power. The essence of constitutional liberty is the 
protection of the individual man against his government. 
Against a foreign oppressor, men rely on armies and navies ; 
but against domestic tyranny they raise the shield of a consti- 
tution. We are apt to say that constitutional liberty is an 
Anglo-Saxon invention. Let us grant this, and then realize 
that its safeguards were devised to protect Anglo-Saxons 
against Anglo-Saxons. Charles I. was as good an Enghshman 
as Cromwell. James II. was a better Englishman than 
William III. The English Constitution has grown up through 
the efforts of English subjects to restrain English kings. 
American constitutions have been framed to prevent Ameri- 
can presidents, governors, judges, and legislatures from op- 
pressing American citizens. Great as is our confidence in 
each other, there is no American living who would surrender 
his constitutional rights, or be content that his liberty or his 
property should be at the mercy of any other Americans. 
What laborer would feel safe if his hours and wages could be 
fixed by a legislature controlled by capital ? What capitalist 
would invest in a state where nothing restrained a legislature 
of laborers from destroying his investment ? 

If the citizen of Massachusetts needs protection against his 
own fellow-citizens, if the American people dare not give their 
President and their Congress power unfettered by a constitu- 
tion, is it not too clear for argument that the shield of a con- 



stitution is far more needed by the Filipinos ? The Con^^ress 
which controls their i^overnment is composed of men who 
do not know them, and who meet thousands of miles from 
their countrw Their governors, who may be selected for other 
reasons than honesty or capacity, do not stay long enough 
to really know them. Both Congress and governors regard 
them as their inferiors, and have nothing to fear from their 
disapproval, since they have neither vote nor representative. 
If Americans cannot be trusted with arbitrary power o\-er 
us at home, they cannot be trusted with it out of sight and 
over foreigners. 

There is no Effective Public Opinion. 

But a still more important safeguard is lacking. I mean 
public opinion. This is the great force against which laws 
and even constitutions are ineffectual, and which more than 
either restrains the rulers of every modern State. Enlight- 
ened public opinion exists only where the public is informed 
and where it is interested. Neither knowledge nor interest 
sufficient to create an effective public opinion can be relied 
upon to control our government in the Philippines. 

Dealing first with knowledge, what has been our experience 
in the past ? 

In considering this, we must not forget that the annexation 
of the Philippines, marking as it did an entirely new depart- 
ure from our previous policy, was a subject in which the 
American people naturally took a deep interest. It had 
never been an issue in any campaign, and it was quite uncer- 
tain how the people would regard it. It was known that 
leaders like Harrison, Reed, Hoar, Bout well, and many others 
opposed it. It was certainly probable that the voters would 
be less likely to favor it, if it involved a war of conquest 
over a civilized people, than if it meant merely the repres- 
sion of a few bandits who were endeavoring to thwart our 
benevolent purposes from motives of personal ambitit)n. 

A presidential campaign was impending, and it was impos- 



32 

sible for men who were candidates for re-election not to be 
anxious about the effect on the popular mind of news from 
the Philippines. There was certainly a strong motive on the 
part of both military and civil authorities to make the best 
case for themselves possible ; and it must be remembered that 
this motive will always operate, so long as our government 
lasts, no matter who undertakes to govern the Philippines. 

Almost at the outset of the military occupation a censorship 
was established over the despatches from Manila. In so far as 
this was intended to prevent information from reaching the 
other side, it was but one feature of military operations ; but 
this does not seem to have been its purpose. All the staff 
correspondents of American newspapers in Manila, eleven in 
number, on July 17, 1899, cabled to the United States a 
joint protest, in which they stated that, " owing to official 
despatches from Manila made public in Washington, the 
people of the United States have not received a correct im- 
pression of the situation in the Philippines. . . . The censor- 
ship has compelled us to participate in this misrepresentation 
by excising or altering uncontroverted statements of facts on 
the plea, as General Otis stated, that ' they would alarm the 
people at home ' or ' have the people of the United States by 
the ears.' " Two of the signers in letters subsequently pub- 
lished quoted the censor as saying, " My instructions are to 
let nothing go that will hurt the McKinley administration." 

These revelations caused a burst of public indignation, which 
was met on October 9 by a statement from the adjutant 
general's office that the censorship had been abolished. 
After the elections this was shown to be false by the censor 
himself, who on December 2 declared that the censorship 
had never been abolished ; and we have every reason to be- 
lieve that it continues still. 

The statement of the correspondents, never contradicted, 
shows that at a very critical period in our history the truth 
was kept systematically from the American people lest 
public opinion should be informed and aroused against the 
persons for the time in power. Their fortunes, not the future 



33 

of the country, controlled their action ; and, if the policy 
which has been pursued proves disastrous to this country, 
let us not forget the methods by which the public was lulled 
into acquiescence. It is one illustration of the way in which 
we may lose our rights, — our right to know the truth and 
decide upon our own policy, — while we think that only the 
rights of another people are at stake. 

Let me further illustrate my proposition by a quotation 
from President McKinley's letter of acceptance : — 

" The American people are asked by our opponents to yield 
the sovereignty of the United States in the Philippines to a 
small fraction of the population, a single tribe out of eighty or 
more inhabiting the archipelago. We are asked to transfer 
our sovereignty to a small minority in the islands without 
consulting the majority, and to abandon the largest portion of 
the population, which has been loyal to us, to the cruelties of 
the guerilla insurgent bands." 

Yet the President's chosen representative, Mr. Schurman, 
knew and about the same time publicly stated that, while he 
had gone to the Philippines with the theory that the people 
were divided into tribes, he discovered that, while Spain three 
hundred years ago found "tribal Indians governed by their 
chieftains, . . . these hereditary chieftains had everywhere dis- 
appeared. . . . Spanish dominion in the course of three cen- 
turies made itself completely effective among the 6,500,000 
of Filipinos, . . . the vast majority of the people of the Philip- 
pine Islands." And in July of the present year at West 
Point Secretary Root said of the army, "In the Philippines 
it has put down an insurrection of 7,000,000 people." 

How completely are these last statements at variance with 
President McKinley's assumption ! The American people 
believed President McKinley, yet Secretary Root's statement 
is true. 

I will not dwell upon reports as to the probable length 
of the contest, the weakness of the Filipinos, or the humanity 
of our methods, which have been proved completely false by 
the facts now admitted, but which did their duty as soporifics 



34 

to the American conscience at critical moments. Let me 
turn at once to very recent statements as to the conditions 
which now prevail. 

The President on November 19, at Memphis, used the fol- 
lowing language : — 

" Again, a disease like the cattle plague may cause in some 
given provinces such want that a part of the inhabitants re- 
vert to their ancient habit of brigandage. But the islands 
have never been as orderly, as peaceful, or as prosperous as 
now." 

Yet, in his annual report, Secretary Root says that " the 
ills which have recently befallen the people of the islands call 
for active and immediate measures of relief. The people of 
a country just emerging from nearly six years of devastating 
warfare, during which productive industry was interrupted, 
vast amounts of property were destroyed, the bonds of 
social order were broken, habits of peaceful industry were 
lost, and at the close of which a great residuum of disorderly 
men were left leading a life of brigandage and robbery, had a 
sufficiently difficult task before them to restore order and 
prosperity. In addition to this, however, the people of the 
Philippine Islands have within the past year been visited by 
great misfortunes. The rinderpest has destroyed about ninety 
per cent, of all their carabaos, leaving them without draft 
animals to till their land and aid in the ordinary work." The 
" surra " has killed and is killing their horses. " The rice crop 
has been reduced to 25 per cent, of the ordinary crop." 
A plague of locusts " has destroyed much of the remaining 
25 per cent. . . . Cholera has raged, and is still raging, 
throughout the islands " ; and it is estimated that this disease 
"will claim not less than 100,000 victims." 

The fall in the price of silver has " borne heavily on the 
commercial interests and on the wage-earners." "The com- 
mission has been obliged to go out of the islands and use in- 
sular funds to buy over 40,000,000 pounds of rice to save the 
people from perishing by famine," while it "has lost over 
$1,000,000 in gold by the decline in silver. . . . Agriculture 



35 

is prostrated, commerce is hampered and discouraged." Well 
did Mr. Burritt Smith .say, " The President's prosperity seems 
composed in nearly ecjual parts of pestilence and famine." 
But, seriously, what must we think when, with these conditions 
existing, the President can aver that the islands were never 
"as peaceful and prt)sperous as now " ? The bare comparison 
of the statement with the facts makes argument superfluous. 

Why do I dwell on these things ? Not to impugn the hon- 
esty of the President, whose nature is combative, not judicial, 
but because I would make you realize the vital difference be- 
tween the government of a people by themselves and a gov- 
ernment of the same people by another nation. A people 
who choose their own rulers cannot long be deceived as to 
their own conditions. They do not take the statements of 
their rulers as necessarily true. For example, if our agriculture 
were prostrate, our commerce discouraged, our currency dis- 
ordered, our animals dying of one disease, our fellow-citizens of 
another, if famine stared us in the face, no President would 
dare to tell us that we were prosperous. No official could 
persuade us that coal is now abundant and cheap in this 
country. President Roosevelt would waste his words if he 
told the P'ilipinos that they were never so happy and pros- 
perous as now. The graves of the dead, the anguish of 
the living, the desolated fields, the starving people, rinder- 
pest and cholera, would answer him. This suffering people 
could not be deceived ; but we, a foreign people, thousands of 
miles away, have no personal knowledge of the facts. We 
must rely on evidence, and we believe our countrymen against 
any Filipino testimony. Hence we may bje deceived, as it is 
now admitted that we have been deceived at every stage of 
this enterprise. 

This is no new thing in human history. You yourselves 
can well recall the days just after the war, when you could not 
make us Northern men believe that evils existed here which 
you knew and felt. Your testimony was weighed against 
that of men sent here to govern you. We said that it was 
the testimony of rebels against loyal men, of men smarting 



36 

from defeat and bitterly hostile against the agents of a hated 
government ; and we would not credit your words. Yet you 
were our brothers : you spoke our language ; your habits of 
thought, your traditions, your blood, were ours. We had a 
common history. We were connected by a thousand ties of 
kindred and friendship and business. Yet even you found 
that your just complaints fell on deaf ears. This has been 
the experience of men from the dawn of history. 

Apply these considerations to our case. The public opinion 
of the Filipinos is accurately informed as to the facts, but it 
is powerless. The Filipino has neither vote nor voice. The 
public opinion of Americans is all-powerful ; but it is igno- 
rant, and it must remain so, for it will receive no evidence 
from Filipinos against Americans ; and the testimony of 
Americans will always be in their own favor. 

Let me give you another instance of the difference between 
the testimony of the governors and that of the people, taken 
from Porto Rico. I have quoted the President's words which 
give the official view of its condition. Against it let me 
place this statement made very recently by a nephew of the 
chief justice of Porto Rico, now a Senior in the Cornell Law 
School, in an address to his class : — 

" Instead of autonomy, which had been conceded to us by 
Spain, we now have a government which gives the governor 
more despotic powers than any Spanish military governor ever 
had ; and he exercises them to the detriment of the people. 
In order that his will may be done and that his power may be 
absolute, Governor Hunt supports the party of the minority, 
composed of American adventurers and native renegades, 
who have no regard for the welfare of the country and are 
ready to applaud as long as they enjoy official protection. 
The election of November last was the greatest political 
crime of the century. All means were used from fraud to 
murder to give the victory to the governmental party, which 
won, although far in the minority. It fills my heart with 
anger and indignation when I think of the number of crimes 
which have been committed to carry such elections. But the 



37 

murderers will remain unpunislied because the ministers in 
the temple of justice are politicians. We have gone back to 
those dark days of the Spanish administration of 1887, when 
our mothers and sisters were in constant fear that their sons 
and brothers might be arrested by the Spanish soldiers, to be 
thrown into a dungeon and suffer torture for the crime of 
being patriots. To-day, under the present government, our 
mothers antl sisters have the same fear that they may be 
brought back murdered because they do not belong to the 
party protected by the government. Life for honest people 
is becoming impossible in Porto Rico, because they see that 
the government protects the criminal and punishes the law- 
abiding citizen. The government there has tainted the flag 
with dishonor. I am sure that, if the true facts were known, 
the honest-hearted Americans would be filled with indigna- 
tion. But only the official reports reach American ears, and 
in them Porto Rico is represented as a happy and prosperous 
country. These reports are ' basely false. Porto Rico is 
going through a great crisis. The island is prostrated. I 
make this appeal to you as true American citizens, because I 
believe that my country is entitled to have a government 
founded upon those principles that have made this nation the 
greatest, the freest, and the noblest among the nations of the 
world, and because I believe we are at least entitled as civil- 
ized and Christian people to have our national rights guaran- 
teed by the government to which we owe our allegiance. In 
Heaven's name, we want, instead of profligacy, honesty; in- 
stead of extravagance, economy ; instead of rioting, peace. 

Where between the American and the Porto Rican lies the 
truth ? 

The Conspiracy of Silence. 

Even if we wished to know the facts, how could we learn 
them .? The party in power still glories in its policy of con- 
quest. The alliance between the wealth of the country and 
that party is very close. The press is largely controlled in 
the joint interest, by direct ownership, advertising patronage, 



38 

and political preferment. We get no news from the Philip- 
pine Islands save an occasional short despatch or an official 
statement from the War Department. The meetings and 
arguments of those who oppose the administration are ig- 
nored, or, as the phrase goes, " crowded out by press of 
other matter," while wide circulation is given to that which 
helps it. An investigation is ordered in the Senate, but 
it is placed in charge of a committee whose chairman has 
been the most ardent supporter , of the Philippine policy. 
With a long list of important witnesses still uncalled, the in- 
vestigation is stopped : the officials whose acts are under 
investigation have been heard, but there is no time to hear 
the other side. The Filipinos themselves are denied a hear- 
ing ; though, if they are the loyal, peaceful, prosperous, free 
people whom the President describes, it is passing strange that 
they should be denied the opportunity to tell this country 
how loyal, free, and happy they are. Such testimony from 
representative Filipinos, such evidence of their consent to our 
sway, would be a powerful weapon against the anti-imperial- 
ists and would make- the consciences of Americans far 
easier. Why are they not called .? I challenge the admin- 
istration — I challenge Senator Lodge to prove their asser- 
tions by evidence within their control before a tribunal 
already organized, and thus confound their opponents. This 
challenge will never be accepted. No Filipino, save an occa- 
sional renegade like. Buencamino, will ever be called. The 
conspiracy of silence, which is recognized in Europe as well 
as here, will continue. Silence, evasion, or bold assertion, is 
safer than the truth. There is no important issue in the 
history of our country on which the press has been so still 
as upon this, or where the facts have been so completely 
disguised. 

Popular Indifference. 

But there is another greater difficulty ; and that is the in- 
difference of the governing nation to the sufferings of distant 
foreign subjects. Many say that the American people cannot 



39 

be induced to take an inteicst in tiie l'hilii)pine question. 
They are content to let their ^-overnment deal with it. 
Where their pockets or their comfort are affected, they take 
a deep interest and criticise their pubUc officials freely. But 
they are so busy with their own affairs, gettin<:,^ their own liv- 
ings, making and spending their own dollars, that they have 
no time for more than a languid and occasional interest in 
the affairs of others. 

It is because the American people do not know and do not 
really care what is done in the Philippines that they are unfit 
to govern them. Say what you will of their intelligence, their 
energy, their high purpose, their fitness to govern, what 
avail all these, if they will not govern, — if their intelligence, 
their energy, their high purpose, are not applied to the task .? 

If the suffering w-hich exists now in Luzon existed in Mas- 
sachusetts, you citizens of South Carolina would be consider- 
ing earnestly how to help us, as during the Revolution you 
sent food and money to the suffering people of Boston. 
If Louisiana was devastated by cholera, the whole country 
would be sending aid. If the agriculture of a single West- 
ern State was prostrate, every other would be doing its 
best to relieve it. Martinque was near ; and we sent ship- 
loads of provisions a year ago, though her calamities were 
in no part of our causing. Has the famine and pesti- 
lence in the Philippines drawn a dollar from one American 
pocket or stirred one American community to active effort 
or even to an expression of .sympathy ? These people are 
prostrate at our feet, and many of their ills are directly caused 
by us. They are to-day members in some sense of our politi- 
cal community, our countrymen-in-law ; yet they are as alien 
to us, as remote from our sympathies, as they were before 
Dewey entered the Bay of Manila. We wish we had not got 
them ; we dislike to hear about them ; we like to believe 
that we have done all that a great nation should ; but our 
consciences are uneasy, and, to avoid the prick, we turn to 
our own affairs. This attitude is the confession of America 
that it cannot govern the Philippine Islands. There is no 
public opinion to restrain their rulers. 



40 

Our examination thus far proves that, of the conditions 
which we have deemed essential to the success of any human 
government, not one is present. It is not our purpose to use 
our power solely for the good of the Filipinos, but first, as 
Senator Lodge says, to benefit ourselves. The development 
which we propose is not the development of the Filipino race, 
but the development of their material resources for our 
own benefit. We have no real knowledge of or sympathy 
with the Filipino people. We dislike and distrust them as 
inferiors with whom we do not care to associate. We pro- 
pose to give them such measure of free government as we 
think them qualified to use, or, in briefer phrase, to govern 
them as we see fit, exercising a power unfettered by any con- 
stitution and unrestrained by any informed and interested 
public opinion. 

How can we hope that a system under which no American 
would be safe in the hands of Americans, a system which 
throws aside all the restraints which civilized men find it 
necessary to impose upon the governments which they frame 
for themselves, will insure good government to these distant 
Asiatics, whose future we have undertaken to control against 
their will .? We have been urged not to adopt the policy of 
" scuttle." There is no meaner policy of " scuttle " than 
that which retains the power and shirks the responsibility ; 
which " scuttles " from our ideals and our principles, which 
forces itself into a trust and ignores its obligations. It is 
against such a " scuttle " that the busy and indifferent people 
of this country should be warned. 

Our Policy does not lead to Independence. 

But I am told that we are only preparing the Filipinos for 
independence. We are educating them ; and, when their 
education is complete, we shall let them go. Our practical 
policy is calculated to prevent this. If we offer American 
capital the opportunity to find investment in these islands, if 
American companies acquire mines, forests, great tracts of 



41 

arable land, and public franchises, we establish the stronfjest 
possible barrier against Filipino independence. Our citizens 
will say to the government : " You invited us into the islands. 
You told us that our capital was needcti, and we accepted 
your invitation. If now you surrender the contrcjl of the gov- 
ernment to the Filipinos, what security have we that our 
property will be safe .? You are bound to stay here in order 
to protect us." The American owners of investments in the 
Philippines will, perhaps, be rich and powerful. They will 
certainly be here and clamorously insistent, while the Fili- 
pinos will be alien and remote. 

How a small interest can override considerations of national 
honor is shown by the success of. the beet-sugar makers in 
controlling our policy with Cuba. There is nothing clearer 
in modern politics than the alliance between financial and 
political powers. Everywhere capital seeks to control the 
government in its own interest. If invested in a weak for- 
eign state, its owners seek to own the government of that 
state, and, failing, try to make their own government inter- 
fere and control it. This was the origin of the Boer War ; 
and like influences have inspired English, French, and German 
aggression in Asia and Africa. The policy of Governor Taft 
and the Philippine statute of last summer are fatal to the in- 
dependence of the Philippines. Every dollar that we plant 
there is an argument against freedom. 

Such are some of the reasons for a confident belief that our 
government of the Philippine Islands cannot be good and can- 
not lead to their elevation and ultimate independence. 

The Experience of Other Nations. 

But men say that human experience proves the contrary. 
Other nations have succeeded : why should not we ? 

What other nations have succeeded ? Not the Greeks, 
though Alexander, the greatest soldier that the world has 
known, pushed his conquests in Asia almost to the Ganges, 
and in Africa to the desert, and died supreme in three con- 



42 

tinents. His empire crumbled at his death, and during the 
centuries since he died Macedonia has been but a name. 

Not the Romans. Their foreign conquests began when Scipio 
triumphed at Zama, and during the next century they ex- 
tended their dominions far and wide, but their provinces be- 
came the scenes of the most intolerable oppression and extor- 
tion practised by successive Roman governors. At the end of 
a century Mommsen says that " the governor of a province 
seemed to administer it no longer for the senate, but for the 
order of capitalists and merchants." It had become a quarrel 
between Romans over the division of spoil, with no thought 
by either for the men who were despoiled. Lucullus and 
Galba harried Spain and Portugal ; and of their acts the same 
historian says, "War has hardly ever been waged with so 
much perfidy, cruelty, and avarice as by these two generals ; 
yet by means of their criminally acquired treasures the one 
escaped condemnation ; and the other escaped even impeach- 
ment." Their cases were typical. 

The colonies of Rome were the nurseries in which were 
trained the armies which under Marius, Sulla, and Cjesar over- 
threw the Roman Republic. The treasures wrung from the 
provinces, and the example of successful robbers like Lucul- 
lus, changed the standards and ideals of Rome and corrupted 
the whole people, so that they had not virtue enough to resist 
these generals. In barely a hundred years after Zama the 
Roman Republic had ceased to exist. Surely, neither Roman 
nor provincial gained by the colonial policy of Rome. 

Take even our own ancestors, with their genius for free- 
dom : what did four centuries of Roman rule do for them ? 
The historian Green answers : * — 

"Commerce sprang up in ports like that of London. 
Agriculture flourished till Britain became one of the great 
corn-exporting countries of the world. Its mineral resources 
were explored. . . . The wealth of the island grew fast during 
centuries of unbroken peace"; but " Here, as in Italy or 
Gaul, the population probably declined as the estates of 
the landed proprietors grew, larger, and the cultivators sank 

■■ " A Short History of the English People,'" p. 5. 



43 

into sorts, whose cabins clustered round the luxurious villas 
of their lords. The mines, if worked by forced labor, must 
have been a source of endless oppression. Town and country 
were alike crushed by heavy taxation. . . . Above all, the 
purely despotic system of the Roman government, by crush- 
ing all local independence, crushed all local vigor. Men 
forgot how to fight for their country when they forgot h<»w 
to govern it." 

Four centuries of Roman rule left in England magnificent 
roads and fine buildings ; but it left a vigorous people robbed 
of their native strength and a prey to barbarians whom they 
could not resist. Can the Filipinos make head against the 
influences which the English could not resist .? 

How is it with Spain, whose soldiers, whose sailors, whose 
statesmen, conquered and governed so large a portion of the 
world } She, too, embarked in her career with high purposes. 
It was to save men's souls that Isabella offered to pawn her 
jewels in aid of Columbus, and in 1495 the pope issued his 
proclamation of " benevolent assimilation " : — 

" You shall persuade the people who inhabit these islands 
and continents to accept the Christian faith. We impress 
upon y<»u, according to your promise, ... to select honorable 
men, and send them to these continents and islands, — men 
who fear God, who are instructed, clever and suitable for the 
purpose of teaching the Catholic doctrine to the inhabitants, 
and to bring them up in good habits." * Alas ! these noble 
aspirations did not live to cross the sea and the unhappy 
natives did not survive to become Christians. In 1492 San 
Domingo had a population of about a million jieople. In 
twenty years it had sunk to thirteen thousand : the rest 
were dead or slaves. Spain sent her sons, the flower of her 
manhood, abroad to conquer the world. Some died on the 
sand-dunes of Holland, at the hands of the Beggars of the 
Sea, who ate their hearts in bitter hatred. Some sank 
beneath the waves of "the narrow seas" when the Great 
Armada perished. Many laid their bones in the tropics, or 
lived to lose their manhood and propagate a degenerate race 

* Bigelow, ■' The Chilciren of the Nations," p. g. 



44 

Where is the region that is better for the civiHzation brought 
by Spain ? Where, after four centuries, is Spain herself ? 

But England at least has succeeded. The Anglo-Saxon 
wins where the Latin fails. Let us test this assertion. We 
must not overlook, however, the important distinction between 
the self-governing colonies of England and her dependencies, 
like India. President Roosevelt, in his Life of Benton, at the 
very beginning of the Spanish War, made this difference clear 
in discussing the annexation of some Canadian provinces : — 

" Of course, no one would wish to see these or any other 
settled communities now added to our domain by force : we 
want no unwilling citizens to enter our Union. The time to 
have taken these lands was before settlers came into them. 
European nations war for the possession of thickly settled 
districts, which, if conquered, will for centuries remain alien 
and hostile to the conquerors. We, wiser in our generation, 
have seized waste solitudes that lay near us, the limitless 
forests and never-ending plains, and the valleys of the great 
lonely rivers, and have thrust our own sons into them to take 
possession." 

It was thus that England colonzied this country, Canada, 
Australia, and New Zealand. These colonies choose their own 
rulers and govern themselves as completely as do the English. 
Their connection with England is nominal ; and, if they wished 
to break the bond, they could do so at pleasure. They possess 
that peculiar power of an independent nation, — the power to 
impose a protective tariff upon imports from the mother 
country. No one proposes to give the Filipinos a government 
like that of Canada. If this were the policy of the adminis- 
tration, there would be no opposition. 

Our people will never colonize the Philippine Islands. We 
are not overcrowded, and there is no pressure of population. 
No American will ever leave the pleasant conditions of 
his native land to make a home in the Philippines. He 
may go there for a temporary sojourn, but never to settle. 
After centuries of British rule in India, Mr. Townsend can 
say : " Not only is there no white race in India, not only is 



45 

there lU) white colony, but there is no white nKin who projjoscs 
to remain. . . . No ruler stays there to help or criticise or 
moderate his successor. No successful white soldier founds 
a family. No white man who makes a fortune builds a house 
or buys an estate for his descendants. The very planter, the 
very engine-driver, the very foreman of works, departs before 
he is si.xty, leavin^^ no child or house or trace of himself 
behind. No white man takes root in India." * 

Thus it is likely to be with us in the Philippines. Our 
dollars will be there, but not our people. Corporations will 
place young men in charge of their interests, who will enlist 
in the service for a term of years, and who will endeavor to 
make as much money in as short a time as possible that they 
may escape the sooner. With Chinese labor under American 
superintendents, some capitalists of America may grow 
rich, while the great body of the nation pays the expense 
of holding the Filipinos down that their business may be 
prosecuted safely. 

The English precedents relied on are Egypt and India. Let 
me hasten to admit that England has introduced many reforms 
into Egypt, and bettered the conditions of the people ; but 
with what is her administration compared, and what has she 
bettered } Egypt was a province of the Turkish empire, 
suffering under the ills of Turkish administration, with a 
people weakened by centuries of such misrule. This was the 
condition which England found, and which she has reformed. 
No one doubts that an English governor is better than a 
Turkish despot. But the people learn self-government under 
neither. 

Indi.\. 

The rule of England in Egypt has been brief; but in India 
it has endured for some centuries. What is the result upon 
the people .? England boasts that she has established peace 
and order throughout the great peninsula, the vaunted />tix 
Britannica. Peace has prevailed for years, unbroken save 
by the great Mutiny and by various wars with nations and 

* " Asia and Europe," p. 86. 



46 

tribes over which she has extended her sway ; but is war the 
greatest calamity which a nation can know ? Mr. Digby, 
an Englishman of experience in India, who has devoted years 
to his subject, tells us that the deaths by war in the whole 
world during 107 years, from 1793 to 1900, have been 
about 5,000,000, while the deaths from famine in India 
alone during 10 years, from 1891 to 1900, have been 
19,000,000. This horror is progressive, and constantly in- 
creases. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century 
there were in India five famines, costing perhaps 1,000,000 
lives ; in the second quarter there were two, causing half as 
great a mortality ; in the third quarter there were six, causing 
5,000,000 deaths ; and in the last quarter there were eigh- 
teen, and it is estimated that 26,000,000 people died of star- 
vation. In 1880, said Sir William Hunter, "there remain 
forty million of people who go through life on insufficient 
food." In 1901 an Indian publicist wrote, "For nearly fif- 
teen years there has been a continuous famine in India, owing 
to high prices." The average duration of human life in 
England is about forty years : in India it is twenty-three. 
These figures tell a ghastly story. The resources of England 
are strained to conquer the Boers, but only a trifling ex- 
penditure in comparison is made to save the lives of men 
whom they have already conquered. 

The Indian administrator is prone to claim that the Indians 
are lightly taxed. So they are, if the rate per head is taken ; 
but the reverse is true, if the proportion of tax to property is 
considered. Applying this test, it would seem that the 
Indian tax-payer paid four times as much as the Scotch and 
three times as much as the English subject of the crown. A 
few years ago it was stated in Parliament that the income tax 
in India yielded one-sixtieth as much for each million people 
as in England; and the speaker added, "If this is not con- 
clusive of the poverty of the people, nothing will satisfy the 
most exacting mind." 

The accumulated wealth of India in the days of Warren 
Hastings was carried away by Englishmen. Now her income 



47 

is drained lo iMii^iand to pay the interest on Mn<;Iish invest- 
ments in railroads and public works, and the expenses of the 
English administration. This drain is said to be now some 
^^"30,000,000 a year. As Mill said in his History of India, 
" It is an extraction of the life blood from the veins of 
national industry, which no subsequent introduction of nour- 
ishment is furnished to restore." 

Mr. Digby's statements as to the inc(jme of the average 
Indian are fortified by a multitude of statistics, and may be 
subject to correction, but they must be so near the truth as 
to illustrate the condition of the Indian population. He says 
that the estimated income of the people per head in 1850 
was twopence a day, that the official estimate in 1882 was one 
and a half pence a day, and that in 1900 it was less than 
three-quarters of a penny a day, and he commends these 
figures to the secretary of state for India, who in 1901 said 
to the House of Commons, "If it could be shown that India 
has retrograded in material prosperity under our rule, we 
stand self-condemned, and we ought no longer to be trusted 
with the control of that country." 

Mr. Digby is strongly opposed to British rule in India. 
Let me quote an authority who strongly favors it, and who 
thus defines his standard : — 

" A prosperous country is one in which the great mass of 
the inhabitants are able to procure, with moderate toil, what 
is necessary for living human lives, — lives of frugal and as- 
sured comfort. . . . But millions of peasants in India are 
struggling to live on half an acre. Their existence is a 
constant struggle with starvation, ending too often in defeat. 
Their difficult)- is not to live Intnian lives, — lives up to the 
level of their poor .standard of comfort, — but to live at all, 
and not die. . . . We may truly say that in India, except in 
the irrigated tracts, famine is chronic, — endemic." * 

How is it with manufacturing industries.-* Mr. Hobson 
quotes passages from various high authorities, of whom one 
says, " Under the pretence of free trade, England has com- 
pelled the Hindus to receive the products of the steam looms 

•" India and its Problems," Lilly, pp. 284, 2S5, quoted by J. \. Hcjbsun. 



48 

of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Glasgow, and at mere nominal 
duties, while the hand-wrought manufactures of Bengal and 
Behar, beautiful in fabric and durable in wear, have had heavy 
and almost prohibitive duties imposed on their importation to 
England." *. . . 

Another spoke of the policy thus : " In India the manu- 
facturing power of her people was stamped out by protection 
against her industries, and then free trade was forced on her 
so as to prevent a revival." * 

Sir George Birdwood described and lamented the process 
more than twenty years ago in these words : — 

" But of late these handicraftsmen, for the sake of whose 
work the whole vvorld has been ceaselessly pouring bullion 
into India, and who, for all the marvellous tissue they have 
wrought, have polluted no rivers, deformed no pleasing pros- 
pects, nor poisoned any air, are being everywhere gathered 
from their democratic village communities, in hundreds and 
thousands, into the colossal mills of Bombay, to drudge in 
gangs, for tempting wages, at manufacturing piece goods, in 
the production of which they are no more morally and intel- 
lectually concerned than the grinder of a barrel-organ in the 
tunes turned out from it." f 

Have these centuries of Enghsh rule elevated the Hindus 
as a people, and are they nearer to self-government than they 
were when England's dominion began ? I asked this question 
of Sir Andrew Clarke, the distinguished administrator of the 
Straits Settlements and a high authority on English colonial 
government. He answered "Not a bit." "Do they not 
want to govern themselves ? " I asked. In reply he quoted 
the remark of a native Hindu of high rank, who said, " I 
suppose, if we were left to govern ourselves, my head might 
be the first to roll in the gutter ; but I feel it in my heart 
that. I wish we had the chance to try." 

The English have broken down the little village democ- 
racies, the nurseries of self-government ; and they have suc- 
cessfully excluded the native Hindus from all important offices 
and all substantial share in the government. Acts of Parlia- 

* " Imperialism," p. 313. t Ibid., p. 310. 



49 

ment and proclamations have promised the Hindus equal 
opportunities; but, as Lord Lytton, the viceroy of India, said 
in 1878, *'We have had to choose between jirohibitin^ them 
and cheating them, and we have chosen the least strai^;;ht for- 
ward course." 

It is unnecessary to multiply testimony. No child learns 
to walk in the arms of its mother, and no people learns to 
govern itself except by doing it. Centuries of subjection 
weaken their initiative, as the muscle which is never used 
becomes atrophied. Men work upward by their own exer- 
tions, and learn by their own mistakes. Failure is a better 
teacher than success. When every avenue to ambition is 
closed, a people soon decays. 

No one has stated this law of human nature better than 
Macaulay : ' ' There is only one cure for the evils which 
newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom. 
When a prisoner leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of 
day, he is unable to discriminate colors or recognize faces ; but 
the remedy is not to remand him into his dungeon, but to 
accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and 
liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have 
become half-blind in the house of bondage ; but, let them 
gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few 
years, men learn to reason ; the extreme violence of opinion 
subsides ; hostile theories correct each other ; the scattered 
elements of truth cease to conflict and begin to coalesce ; and 
at length a system of justice and order is educed out of 
chaos. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of lay- 
ing it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought 
to be free until they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim 
is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go 
into the water till he had learned to swim ! If men are to 
wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, 
they may, indeed, wait forever ! ' ' 

Says Bernard Holland : " British rule tends to destroy 
native originality, vigor, and initiative. Pfow to replace thr.t 
which our rule takes away is the great Indian problem." li 



50 

has caused, in the words of another, " the gradual decay, . . . 
the slow death, ... of Indian art, Indian culture, Indian 
military spirit." 

Let me give you in conclusion the testimony of two 
Englishmen who believe in the empire, but who see its 
results. 

Said Professor Seeley of the Indian government : " At best, 
we think of it as a good specimen of a bad political system. 
We are not disposed to be proud of the succession of the 
Grand Mogul. We doubt whether, with all the merits of our 
administration, the subjects of it are happy. We may even 
doubt whether our rule is preparing them for a happier con- 
dition, whether it may not be sinking them lower in misery ; 
and we have our misgivings that perhaps a genuine Asiatic 
government, and still more a national government springing 
up out of the Hindu population itself, might, in the long run, 
be more beneficial, because more congenial, though perhaps 
less civilized, than such a foreign unsympathetic government 
as our own." * 

And Meredith Townsend says: "Beneath the small film 
of white men who make up the ' Indian empire ' boils 
or sleeps away a sea of dark men, incurably hostile, who 
await with patience the day when the ice shall break and the 
ocean regain its power of restless movement under its own 
laws. As yet there is no sign that the British are accom- 
plishing more than the Romans accomplished in Britain, that 
they will spread any permanently successful ideas, or that 
they will found anything whatever. It is still true that, if 
they departed or were driven out, they would leave behind 
them, as the Romans did in Britain, splendid roads, many 
useless buildings, an increased weakness in the subject 
' people, ' and a memory which in a century of new events 
would be extinct. ' ' f 
His conclusion is, — 

' ' The chasm between the brown man and the white man is 
unfathomable, has existed in all ages, and exists still every- 
where. " 

*"The Expansion of England," p. 273, quoted by Mr. Hobson. 
t " Asia and Europe," pp. 26, 97. 



This is the \'crclirl ot Kni;lislinK'n on the results of English 
rule in Asia, which has lasted for centuries. They are con- 
demning not the foundation, which was laid in blood and 
rapine, but the edifice which has been patiently reared by 
hundreds of conscientious men. It is a confession of failure. 



1 1 A \' K We Succefded ? 

But we are confidently told that we have succeeded already. 
" No policy ever entered into by the American people has 
vindicated "itself in a more signal manner than the policy of 
holding the Philippines." The policy of freedom adopted by 
the men who founded the republic, the policy of peace with 
foreign nations, the various policies under which we have 
grown in numbers and prosperity, have, in comparison, but 
little claim to our admiration. 

" The triumph of our arms — above all, the triumph of 
our laws and principles — has come sooner than we had any 
right to expect." 

The triumph of our arms has come, if triumph is the 
word which fitly describes the victory won by this mighty 
nation, with every resource of modern war, over the weak, 
undisciplined, poorly armed men who have died for the free- 
dom of their native land. But has it come sooner than we 
had a right to expect .? If so, what shall we say of the official 
despatches and rcpt)rts which have assured us from the very 
outbreak of hostilities that the end was at hand ? Did the 
administration seriously expect that it would take more than 
I2 5,cx)0 men and more than four years to conquer "a single 
tribe out of eighty or more inhabiting the archipelago.''" If 
so, these expectations were carefully concealed from the 
American people. 

Let us concede the triumph of our arms ; but where shall 
we look for the triumph of our principles and our laws .-' Cer- 
tainly, the triumphant principles are not to be found in the 
Declaration of Independence, in the Constitution of the 
United States, or in the Sermon on the Mount. One might 



52 

ask for a statement of any principle ever cherished by this 
people which has not been trodden under foot. 

This policy "has vindicated itself"! What have been its 
results ? 

We have destroyed a large part of the Filipino people. 
General Bell said that in two years before May, 1901, "one- 
sixth of the natives of Luzon have either been killed or had 
died of dengue fever." This was comparatively early; and 
a year later an official report, as to one province, stated that 
the population had been reduced by one-third. After this 
date Samar was made "a howling wilderness" under General 
Smith, and General J. F. Bell dealt with Batangas as follows. 
I quote his words : — 

" I am now assembling in the neighborhood of 2,500 men 
who will be used in columns of about fifty men each. I take 
so large a command for the purpose of thoroughly searching 
each ravine, valley, and mountain peak for insurgents and for 
food, expecting to destroy everything I find outside of towns. 
All able-bodied men will be killed or captured. Old men, 
women, and children will be sent to towns. This movement 
begins January i, by which time I hope to have nearly all the 
food supply in the towns. These people need a thrashing, to 
teach them some good common sense ; and they should have 
it for the good of all concerned." 

We have laid waste their fields, we have destroyed both crops 
and cultivators, we have burned villages and towns leaving 
the people homeless, we have adopted the reconcentration 
policy of General Weyler, and have borrowed mediaeval 
tortures from Spain, in order to aid our policy of conquest. 
I cannot add to the picture of resulting ruin which Sec- 
retary Root has drawn in his annual report. 

We found 7,000,000 of people friendly and prosperous. 
We have reduced them to straits like these. We have de- 
stroyed more Filipino life and property in four years than 
Spain in her centuries of rule. Is this success ? 

We have sent to the islands nearly 125,000 of our citizens, 
of whom many have been killed, raan)^ more disabled by 



53 

wounds and disease, many made insane, and a \ery lar;;e num- 
ber so demoralized as to re.i;ard torture, reconcentration, and 
the slaughter of prisoners and non-combatants as ri<:jht 1 
Is this success ? 

We ha\e spent lumdreds ot millions, drawn from the taxes 
of the people, on this war ; and the end is not yet. Three 
millions more are asked now to save the Filipinos from starva- 
tion, and the Commissioners tell us that conditions will be 
worse before they are better. Is this success.? 

We have stricken down the first republican government 
ever established in Asia, and have turned millions of cordial 
friends into bitter enemies. Is this success ? 

Finally, we have abandoned the ideals and principles of 
liberty which we have cherished from our birth, and ha\'e 
adopted the principles and practices of tyranny, which we 
have always condemned. I ask again, Is this success ? 

We have proved abundantly the truth of Lincoln's words : 
'* No man iS- good enough to govern another without that 
other's consent " ; and the more we e.xtol the character and 
purposes of those who have done these things, the more com- 
plete is the proof. 

What do we gain .? Commercial expansion .? If the whole 
commerce of the Orient were offered us at such a price, had 
we the right to pay it .? But such methods do not extend 
trade. With the Filipinos as our friends, prospering with 
our help, our commerce with them would have been as valu- 
able as it is capable of being ; but commerce is not promoted 
by 4^uining and killing our customers. I will not weary you 
with figures ; but the experience of England and every other 
nation has shown that tropical trade has never paid the cost of 
tropical conquest, and nothing is more completely ilisproved 
than the claim that trade follows the Hag. 

No, our policy has not succeeded. It has failed, and its 
failure is written in blood on every fold of the flag which we 
loved to call " the flag of the free." It is written on the 
fresh graves, the ruined homes, and the barren fields of the 
conquered islands. It is written in the sullen hearts of the 



54 

Filipinos, who cannot but remember our cruelties, and, in the 
President's own words, " will for centuries remain alien and 
hostile to the conquerors." It is written also in the hard- 
ened hearts of our own countrymen, who have forgotten 
their ideals and have learned to tolerate and to approve 
what they have always execrated. 

" The Moving Finger writes ; and, having writ, 
Moves on, nor all your Piety nor Wit 
Can lure it back to cancel half a Line, 
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it." 

But we are told, " These things are past, and will soon be 
forgotten." So men have always hoped of their misdeeds. 
Let me turn to another page of history. Centuries ago Pizarro 
and Cortez descended on the Peruvians and Mexicans, slaugh- 
tered them, robbed them of their treasures, visited them with 
the extremities of war, annexed their countries to the domin- 
ions of Spain, and returned, loaded with spoil, to receive the 
applause of their countrymen. Long afterward the galleons of 
Spain continued to carry gold and silver from Mexico and Peru 
to fill the coffers of the king. The Peruvians and Mexicans 
spoke no language that any European could understand. No 
cable, no reporter, no newspaper, no mail, carried to Europe 
any story of their wrongs. They were more remote than any 
corner of the world to-day. Their voices could not reach 
across the seas to tell their woes. 

Yet there is not a school-boy to-day who does not know 
what they suffered, and has not learned to hate their con- 
querors. Peru and Mexico long ago ceased to be territory 
of Spain. The treasures which they poured into her lap 
have long been spent ; but there remains upon the flag of 
Spain the deep red stain which Pizarro and Cortez left 
there, and the whole Spanish nation has shared the disgrace 
Think you that, if this voiceless people could make their 
woes known across the ages and across the centuries, the 
deeds of Americans in Luzon and Samar are so soon for- 
gotten ? We know them, even though we dare not admit 



55 

them, and the world knows them ; and we may be sure that 
they will be remembered as lonj; and as far as the deeds of 
Pizarro and Cortez. May the stain on our flaj; not prove as 
indelible 1 

TlIK Tklli PflLICY. 

There is but one remedy for the wronj;s we iiave done. 
We cannot recall the dead ; but we can do justice to the living, 
as a great nation should. If we have been wrong, let us not 
adopt the helpless attitude, and say, " We are sorry we began ; 
but, being in, we must persist." IVIust we, because we have 
entered upon the wrong path, pursue it to the bitter end 
rather than retrace our steps ? '* There are three short and 
simple words," says Lowell, " the hardest of all to pronounce 
in any language (and I suspect they were no easier before 
the confusion of tongues), but which no man or nation that 
cannot utter can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those 
words are '/ was xorong.' " Shall we shrink from this test of 
our manhood ? 

Our true course is to give the Filipinos their indepen- 
dence. Self-government is the right of every nation because 
no other surely regards the interests of the governed. Men 
are essentially selfish, and power is always used to benefit 
him who wields it. The king aims to preserve and strengthen 
his dynasty. The oligarchy clings to its privileges at the 
expense of the people. The " boss " governs in his own 
interest. It is only when the power is in the hands of 
the people that the rights and interests of the people are 
secure, and this is the truth which the founders of this 
nation declared. We have the precedent of Cuba ; and, if 
there is a difference, it is in favor of the P'ilipinos, for they had 
a government fully organized and in successful operation 
everywhere outside our lines till we destroyed it, while the 
Cubans had theirs to organize. Why should we not give 
the Filipinos the same opportunity that we are proud to have 
given the Cul^ans .' 

It is said that they are divided into many tribes, and that 



56 

they cannot govern themselves. The answer is that they 
united against Spain and against us, and that they did govern 
themselves with entire success till we interfered. If it was 
safe to leave the sultan of the Sulus to govern his people, 
why not let the accepted government of the other islands re- 
tain its power .? 

I think it is Professor Jenks who, in his recent report, 
said that the Filipinos were unfit to govern themselves be- 
cause "they are readily bribed." How should we Anglo- 
Saxons stand this test ? Shall we disfranchise St. Louis, 
many of whose elected governors are now in prison or on 
the way to it for bribery .? Shall we deal likewise with Min- 
neapolis, whose mayor and chief of police administered a 
whole system of corruption ? Shall every State now repre- 
sented in the Senate by a man who bought his seat be driven 
from the family of States ? Is bribery unknown in Illinois, 
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York? What say the empty 
chairs at Washington which wait the result of the effort 
made by Mr. Addicks to buy the State of Delaware ? What 
municipal legislature, what State legislature, indeed, is to-day 
above suspicion, if great corporations are seeking legislation ? 
Let New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, Boston, 
tell us whether bribery is unknown to them, and, when these 
questions are answered, we may decide how great is the mote 
in our brother's eye. 

But it is said they would kill each other, and that anarchy 
would ensue if we left the islands. When our troops 
reached the islands, there was no anarchy and the Filipinos 
were governing themselves. The only anarchy that has 
been known there is the anarchy which we introduced. It is 
pure assumption that the Filipinos would have engaged in 
internecine war. The Japanese, also Malays, and far less 
civilized than the Filipinos when we first knew them, have 
grown in fifty years into the greatest Eastern power. We 
did not feel bound to annex them, lest they should kill 
each other, nor to stop such wars as they have known 
since. We have aided them by teaching them here and in 



57 

Japan, aiul wc ha\c let thciii (k'Nclop dii their Dwn lines. 
Why shoultl not their IcUow Malays be as successful? 

It may be doubted whether Asiatics are more prone to civil 
war than Europeans, or whether in proportion to their num- 
bers more men have been killed in any Asiatic country than 
fell in the wars of the Roses, in the Revolution, in the sub- 
jugation of Ireland, and in the wars with Scotland, while the 
British nation was in making. When we reflect that the 
Crimean War, the wars between France and Austria, Prussia 
and Austria, Germany and France, Russia and Turkey, and 
our own Civil War, to say nothing of many minor wars, have 
occurred within fifty years, can we justly claim that we are 
more peaceful than the Asiatics, or deny to them for this 
reason the independence which we claim for ourselves ? Se- 
vastopol, Gettysburg, Solferino, Sadowa, Sedan, Plevna, — what 
are our associations with these names ? Asiatic nations have 
endured as long as man's memory extends, undestroyed by 
civil war. Why should we assume that the Filipinos would 
develop a passion for slaughtering each other which would 
exceed the measure allowed to civilized nations ? Why should 
we not have waited till interference became necessary, and 
not ourselves begin the killing? They could not in fifty 
years, with their skill in arms, have done themselves such 
damage as we have done them in four. 

But some other nation might interfere ; and, to protect 
our lambs from other wolves, we must turn wolf ourselves. 

This, again, is a pure assumption, and one often resorted 
to as an excuse for aggression. If no nation interfered to 
help them in their struggle with us, it was either indifference 
or fear of us that prevented. Had we simply made it known 
to foreign powers that we wished the independence of the 
islands respected, the same influences would have been 
effectual. Our wish has protected this continent against 
European oppression, and it would have been equally potent 
to protect the Philippines. Had a show of force been deemed 
necessary, far fewer ships and soldiers could have held the 
islands with the F"ilipinos as cordial allies than we .need 



58 

now to repress the Filipinos alone. As we never tried to 
secure their independence by international agreement, we 
have no right to assume that the attempt would have failed. 
We cannot excuse ourselves by assuming a danger that never 
existed, even if we can justify ourselves in doing what we 
think no other nation should have done. A war to preserve 
Filipino independence would have been philanthropy : a war 
to destroy it was a crime. Our plain duty now is to re- 
store it. 

To Hawaiians and Porto Ricans should be given at once all 
the rights of American citizens, and we should either in the 
near future admit these territories as States adopting the 
policy pursued with Florida and Louisiana, or contemplate 
their ultimate independence. Their present position cannot 
be permanent. 

How WILL OUR Policy affect Ourselves.? 

" Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for them- 
selves, and under a just God cannot long retain it." 

Are the words of Lincoln true 1 They have the support of 
much human experience. A republic finds its only secure 
foundation in the belief of the people that men have equal 
rights. Once shatter that belief — once teach them that the 
stronger or the wiser or the better men have the right to rule 
others against their will, and the stronger are easily persuaded 
that they are also the wiser and the better. Let them once 
see the easy methods of despotism applied to one part of the 
people under their flag, and they ask themselves why they 
should not apply the same methods to others whom they dis- 
like or distrust. 

There comes a time in the history of most governments 
when internal differences make men feel insecure. Let me 
illustrate my meaning by an extract from a letter written by 
Guizot to Henry Reeve after Napoleon HL had overthrown 
the French Republic. He wrote : — 

" The great bulk of the people, those to whom their private 
interest is the sole consideration, are satisfied. The expecta- 



59 

tion of the crisis of 1852 weighed ui)on these interests Hke 
a nightmare. The president delivered them from it : he is 
fighting against socialism and demag(^gism. By his triumi)h, 
manufacturers, merchants, honest artisans and peasants, may 
look for some security in their work and business for some 
time to come. They ask nothing more of him." 

Is there nothing in this line of thought which seems famil- 
iar to you ? 

Within a few years the Southern States have disfranchised 
a large body of voters. It was accomplished with apparent 
ease, and it is justified by those who supported it on the 
ground that the interests of the community required it. It 
is certainly possible that this precedent may be followed 
in other States, and that bodies of naturalized voters or of 
ignorant voters may be disfranchised for a like reason. It is 
not inconceivable that a large campaign fund might be pro- 
vided, and that the very class whose rights were attacked 
might follow the example of Esau. 

The process of changing the beliefs of a nation is slow ; 
but are not the evidences of such a change about us ? Our 
legislatures no longer command our respect. A few years 
ago the House of Representatives " ceased to be a delibera- 
tive body," as Mr. Reed described the result of his own rules. 
This great arena, in which the representatives of the nation 
assemble to discuss the affairs of us all, is no longer the home 
of free speech. A few men decide what the House shall do, 
who shall speak, and how long their speeches shall occupy. 
It is a significant change. It is common report that in some 
States senators of the United States determine in advance 
how the legislature shall be organized, and how it shall deal 
with the measures before it. Where the "boss" is well es- 
tablished, there is to-day little government by the people. 
The voter trusts the party, the party surrenders to the 
organization, the organization obeys the "boss." This ten- 
dency to a " one-man power " is suggestive. 

It is astonishing how commonly in private conversation 
men express the belief that republican government is a failure, 
and the tendency to vest larger powers in executive officers 



6o 

and to curb in various ways the power of the legislature is 
apparent everywhere. 

When Guizot asked Lowell how long our republic would 
last, he replied, " As long as the ideas of the men who founded 
it continue dominant." They are the foundation of our gov- 
ernment, and whatever weakens them endangers it. We have 
learned how the republics of the ancient world successively 
fell, and we have seen the overthrow of a republic in France. 
To meet our problems here, to restrain the power of capital 
and the excesses of labor, we need a deeply rooted faith in 
our own institutions, a passionate love of justice. We cannot 
destroy the ideals of the nation : we cannot insist that the 
Declaration of Independence is wrong : we cannot govern 
millions of men outside the Constitution : we cannot hold a 
single Filipino, like Mabini, a prisoner without trial or sen- 
tence, — and hope to preserve in full strength that faith in the 
equal rights of men which is the soul of this nation. Every 
man who defends these things has begun to lose his belief ; 
and, while years may elapse without a change in the external 
form of government, no one can tell when some crisis will 
find our people as glad to welcome a strong man as the 
French were to receive a new Napoleon. Let us remember 
that Dreyfus in his cage on Devil's Island, with the whole 
army against him but with justice on his side, was strong 
enough to shake the French Republic. Let us cling fast 
to our faith, and regard him who would weaken it as an enemy 
to his country. 

The time will come, if this republic is to endure, when an 
overwhelming public sentiment will make itself felt, and we 
shall do what every true American in his heart would like to 
have his country do, — give the Filipinos their freedom, and 
thus regain that proud position among the nations of the 
world which we have lost, the moral leadership of mankind, 
becoming again, in the words of Aguinaldo, "the great 
nation, North America, Cradle of Liberty," beneath whose 
flag, wherever it floats in this wide world, there is no room 
for a subject, but a sure refuge for every man who desires 
that freedom which is the birthright of every humetn being. 



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